North Korea, US warm toward talks with North voicing willingness to talk
SEOUL, (MILLAT ONLINE)::North Korea and the United States appear to have moved one step closer to holding much-needed bilateral talks to put a lid on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme after a senior North Korean official said in Seoul last week that his country is willing enough to talk to the US, Yonhap reported.
In a meeting with President Moon Jae-in on Sunday, Kim Yong-chol, a senior official at the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, said North Korea-US relations must develop along with the South-North Korea relationship.
Kim also said Pyongyang has “enough intention to hold North Korea-US dialogue” during his South Korea visit for the closing Olympic ceremony on Sunday, according to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.
The White House quickly responded to the stance, saying it will judge whether the remarks indicate a commitment to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
“We will see if Pyongyang’s message today, that it is willing to hold talks, represents the first steps along the path to denuclearization,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
It is the two countries’ first public exchange of messages in favor of arranging Washington-Pyongyang talks, deemed pivotal in putting a brake on North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. It also marked the North’s first public announcement of its willingness to talk to the US after the US has repeatedly said it is waiting for the North to say it is ready to talk.
Diplomatic officials in Seoul said the U.S. appears to be taking a cautious response to the Sunday remarks by Kim, having not yet fully grasped the implications of the remarks.
“It was not something that North Korea told the US directly to express its willingness to talk, and it didn’t say for what it wants to talk. Therefore, the US seems to be taking the remarks only as what could be deemed as half a step forward,” a diplomatic source said. Still, the new developments bode well for Moon’s push to use the reconciliatory momentum created by the North’s Olympic participation to enable denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
A major conundrum remains, however, regarding how to bridge the two sides’ different conditions for a meaningful dialogue.
Having imposed an additional round of heavy sanctions on North Korea last week, the US threatened to move to “phase two” sanctions if the current ones are not effective.
Despite the growing reconciliatory mood with the North, Washington has said it will continue its “maximum pressure campaign” on North Korea and any talks with the North will be possible only if they center on denuclearization of the country.
North Korea’s foreign ministry lashed back the latest sanctions, saying its nuclear weapons are self-defence measures developed in defence against such warlike sanctions by the US.
South Korean diplomatic officials suggest a North Korean moratorium on nuclear and missile tests could be a commitment strong enough to get the US to the negotiating table with the North.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters in Seoul last week that the US wants to see signals on North Korean denuclearization, saying they can be a start for productive talks, a remark interpreted as the US waiting for the North to take a step toward denuclearization before the two hold talks.
The North has not shown any signs of officially announcing such a moratorium so far, although the regime has not conducted any tests of military weapons since November last year. The regime, however, has hinted at the possibility of a moratorium, with Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korea newspaper published in Japan, saying two weeks ago, “It is logically and realistically reasonable to predict that the North would not conduct nuclear or ballistic missile tests while the reconciliatory mood between North and South Korea continues.”