Pompeo to assure release of US detainees in North Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to soon confirm the release of three American prisoners from North Korea as well as the time and place for a Trump-Kim summit, according to a South Korean presidential official Wednesday. American President Donald Trump claimed last week that he knew when and where he would be meeting the North's leader Kim Jong-un, but no details have been disclosed since then.

Pompeo is widely understood to have arrived in Pyongyang earlier Wednesday for his second visit to the North Korean capital in less than a month.

"We expect him to bring the date, time and the captives," Seoul's presidential official was quoted as saying by local news agency Yonhap on the condition of anonymity.

Trump's meeting with Kim - presuming it happens - is likely to build on the denuclearization and peace commitments that the North's leader made during the breakthrough inter-Korean summit on April 27. While the U.S. has been campaigning for over a year for the release of three detained citizens in North Korea, Seoul is also hoping Pyongyang's recent cooperative mood will lead to freedom for six of its own prisoners in the reclusive state.

Both Seoul and Washington generally bar travel by ordinary people to the North because of Pyongyang's harsh punishment of seemingly innocent acts such as religious work.