U.S. President Donald Trump said he held in-depth discussions with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over North Korea's nuclear problems during the summit, the office of South Korea's acting leader said Saturday.
Trump made the remark during his 20-minute phone talks with Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn which started at around 7:20 a.m. after his first summit with Xi.
"(Trump told Hwang) that there were in-depth talks about North Korea's serious nuke problems and how to respond to them (during the summit)," according to Hwang's office.
"(The U.S. president said that) he delivered Washington's stance to China over the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea," it said.
The phone talks came after Trump and Xi agreed Friday to work together closely to convince North Korea to curb its nuclear program in their summit talks.
There is speculation that North Korea may carry out another nuclear test or launch a long-range rocket around its key anniversaries in April including the birthday of late founder Kim Il-sung.
Trump said he sufficiently emphasized the importance of South Korea and the Seoul-Washington alliance to the U.S., the office said.
"(The U.S. President said that) during the summit, considerable time was spent in discussing issues of the Korean Peninsula," it said.
Trump showed support for South Korea's policy toward North Korea, adding that the U.S. and South Korea will closely coordinate to resolve North Korea's nuclear issue.
The summit also came amid China's strong opposition to Seoul and Washington's ongoing deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), on South Korean soil.
China showed an explicit objection to the THAAD installment, saying that the move undermines China's security interests. (Yonhap)