The US is ready to restart nuclear negotiations with North Korea, a senior US diplomat said yesterday, one day after the US and South Korean militaries ended regular joint drills that North Korea has called an invasion rehearsal.
During the 10-day training exercises, North Korea raised tensions with its own missile and other weapons tests.
However, North Korea’s typically harsh rhetoric over the drills largely focused on South Korea, not the US, in a suggestion that it was still interested in resuming nuclear talks with the US.
Photo: AP
US President Donald Trump has said that he received a “beautiful” three-page letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Trump said that Kim wanted to meet again to restart the talks after the US-South Korean drills ended and that Kim offered him “a small apology” over the weapons tests.
US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun yesterday told reporters in Seoul that “we are prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea.”
Biegun said that Trump assigned his team to restart working-level talks with North Korea, in line with what Trump and Kim agreed during their third summit in late June.
“I am fully committed to this important mission and we will get this done,” Beigun said.
Beigun also denied media speculation that he might be appointed as the new US ambassador to Russia.
“I will remain focused on making progress on North Korea,” he said.
Beigun was in Seoul for talks with South Korea.
His South Korean counterpart, Lee Do-hoon, said that the two discussed how to quickly resume the nuclear negotiations and produce “substantial progress.”
US-led talks on ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons collapsed after Trump rejected Kim’s demand for sweeping sanctions relief in return for partial disarmament steps at their second summit in Vietnam in February.
At their third meeting at the Korean border village of Panmunjom on June 30, the two leaders agreed to restart the talks, but there has been no public meeting between the countries.
Many experts have said that North Korea’s recent weapons tests were mainly aimed at applying pressure on the US ahead of a possible resumption of talks, while registering its protest against the military drills.
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