President Donald Trump has accepted North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un's dramatic offer to meet, and he'll do it by May, a South Korean official said Thursday evening.

South Korea's national security adviser Chung Eui-yong informed U.S. press of the expected in-person conversation and said the goal of the unprecedented meeting between the two countries' leaders is permanent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Chung did not say where the meeting would take place.

A half hour after the foreign official announced the meeting, steps from the West Wing, the White House confirmed Trump's participation. But it did not second Chung's claim that talks would be held within the next two months.

A statement from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the place and time of the meeting was still being worked out.
'President Trump greatly appreciates the nice words of the South Korean delegation and President Moon. He will accept the invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un at a place and time to be determined,' Sanders said. 'We look forward to the denuclearization of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.'

A U.S. official said the meeting would take place in 'a matter of a couple of months' but did not commit the president to a face-to-face with Kim this spring.
Kim made the overture to U.S. president - who has repeatedly called the North Korean dictator 'Little Rocket Man' - orally, through Chung, the person said.
'He conveyed that he wants to meet with President Trump as quickly as possible,' the senior official stated.
The North Koreans are offering to suspend their nuclear missile testing program, Chung told White House officials before he briefed press from the building's North Lawn.

Chung said that Kim understands and accepts the fact that joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises will continue.
The senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters after Chung's televised statement said the stiff punishing actions on North Korea would also stay in place.

'At this point we're not even talking about negotiations,' the official said of a plan to hold North Korea to its word that it would freeze its illicit nuclear and ballistic missile development programs.
President Trump reiterated the point in a tweet that followed.

'Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!' the U.S. president said.

News that Trump had agreed to meet the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent Asian stock markets surging and the yen tumbling.
It provided a springboard for Asian markets, with Seoul surging 1.1 percent and Tokyo ending 0.5 percent higher.
Hong Kong added more than one percent, Sydney and Singapore each rose 0.3 percent, and Shanghai jumped 0.6 percent. Taipei, Manila, Wellington and Mumbai were also higher.

'It's a big deal - there's no question this is a positive move,' Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a political-risk research and consulting firm in New York, told Bloomberg TV.
'But also there is the possibility that it could go badly, that Trump could be embarrassed that they make an agreement that Kim Jong Un could backslide on.'
Hopes that the two could reach some sort of agreement also led to a plunge in the yen, which is considered a go-to safe currency in times of volatility and uncertainty. The dollar jumped to its highest level in a week.

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