North Korea Says Willing to Hold Talks with US, Halt Nuclear Tests – South

North Korea is willing to hold talks with the United States on denuclearisation and will suspend nuclear tests while those discussions are under way, Reuters reported the South as saying on Tuesday after a delegation returned from meeting the North’s leader Kim Jong Un.

Responding to the news in a series of tweets, U.S. President Donald Trump said he saw “possible progress” and that “for the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned”.

The potential talks “may be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction,” Trump tweeted.

There was no immediate comment from Pyongyang.

“North Korea made clear its willingness to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and the fact there is no reason for it to have a nuclear programme if military threats against the North are resolved and its regime is secure,” the head of the South Korean delegation, Chung Eui-yong, told a media briefing.

North and South Korea, still technically at war but enjoying a significant easing in tension since the Winter Olympics in the South last month, will also hold their first summit in more than a decade next month at the border village of Panmunjom, Chung said.

Chung cited the North as saying it would not carry out nuclear or missile tests while talks with the international community were under way. North Korea has not carried out any such tests since November last year.

“The North also said it can have frank talks with the United States on denuclearisation and the normalisation of ties between North Korea and the United States,” Chung said.

The prospect of talks between the isolated North and the United States helped boost global stock markets, with the broadest gauge of global shares, MSCI’s All Country World Index, rising 0.7 percent and Wall Street stocks opening higher.