U.S. President Donald Trump greeted three former detainees at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as they stepped outside a U.S. military medical plane at around 4 p.m. Thursday, Korean time.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also returned with them but on a separate plane. He had been on his second visit to North Korea. 

Welcoming them at the airport, Trump told reporters that the return of the three detainees is “very meaningful.”

Trump said, however, that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is more important, adding the U.S. will win its efforts to have the North abandon its nuclear weapons. 

He thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for releasing the detainees --- Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul. The White House welcomed their return in a statement, saying it views the North’s decision to release them as a “positive gesture of good will." 

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