Trump announces 3 US citizens detained in North Korea are now free, on their way home

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President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the three US citizens detained in North Korea were on their way back to the US with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after a meeting with Kim Jong Un.

Additionally, Trump said Pompeo had set the time and place of the upcoming summit between Trump and Kim.

"I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong Un. Date & Place set" Trump tweeted.

The release comes after a long back-and-forth between the US and North Korea and a meeting between Pompeo and Kim in April that failed to secure the release of the detainees.

US citizens detained in North Korea give Pyongyang leverage in possible negotiations with the US. As such, Trump's National Security Adviser, John Bolton, urged North Korea to release the US citizens as a show of their sincerity before the looming talks.

The three citizens - Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk, and Kim Hak-song - had been released from a labor camp and given health treatment and ideological education in Pyongyang, the Financial Times reported earlier.

North Korea keeps around 100,000 political prisoners in labor camps that have been likened to Nazi German camps, though it's unclear that's where the US citizens were held.

The last US citizen released by North Korea, Otto Warmbier, came home in a coma and died just days after his release.

North Korea has signaled a commitment to denuclearization and said it would stop its nuclear and missile tests, though it has dropped a demand for the withdrawal of US forces from the Korean Peninsula and avoided calling for an end to the US's annual military exercises with South Korea as a condition for giving up its nuclear program.