"The president will not have the meeting without seeing concrete steps and concrete actions take place by North Korea, so the president will actually be getting something," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told media on Friday. Sanders did not specify what actions North Korea needed to take, and a White House official later said she was not intending to set new conditions for talks with Kim. The United States has long said it wants any talks to aim at Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear weapons and missile programmes. Hopes for a breakthrough with North Korea rose on Thursday when Trump said he was prepared to hold an unprecedented meeting with Kim. Xi "hopes the United States and North Korea start contacts and dialogue as soon as possible and strive to reach positive results," the report added.

Source: Otago Daily Times March 09, 2018 23:03 UTC