Trump to meet with former Yemen hostage: White House

President Trump is scheduled to meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon with Danny Burch, who was recently freed from captivity in Yemen, the White House announced Tuesday evening.

The White House said that Burch and his family will meet behind closed doors with the president less than two weeks after their reunification was announced.

Trump had made the announcement on Twitter while aboard Air Force One on his way to Vietnam for nuclear talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.{mosads}

“It is my honor today to announce that Danny Burch, a United States citizen who has been held hostage in Yemen for 18 months, has been recovered and reunited with his wife and children,” he wrote Feb. 25.

Trump’s announcement comes after reports last month that Burch had been freed and sent to Oman.

Burch, who is married to a Yemeni citizen, was working in Yemen in September 2017 when he was detained while taking his children to school. His wife and colleagues told news outlets that gunmen kidnapped him in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa.

Speculation arose that Burch’s kidnapping was in response to broader geopolitical coalitions fighting in Yemen’s years-long civil war.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, which control Sanaa, are fighting against a U.S.-supported coalition spearheaded by Saudi Arabia. Trump thanked the United Arab Emirates, one of the key partners in the Saudi bloc, for helping rescue Burch.