North Korea: Kim receives 'excellent' letter from Trump

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — President Donald Trump sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a letter, a government-controlled news agency reported Sunday.

Kim "said with satisfaction that the letter is of excellent content," the Korean Central News Agency reported.

"Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content," the agency said.

Nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea broke down after the failed summit between Kim and Trump in February in Vietnam.

The U.S. is demanding that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons entirely before international sanctions are lifted. North Korea is seeking a step-by-step approach in which moves toward denuclearization are matched by concessions from the U.S., notably a relaxation of the sanctions.

Trump and Kim exchanged letters in 2018 after a summit in Singapore to discuss the nuclear issue. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the time the letters addressed their commitment to work toward North Korea's "complete denuclearization."

In September 2018, Trump told a cheering crowd at a campaign rally in West Virginia that Kim "wrote me beautiful letters and they're great letters. We fell in love."