US probes North Korea’s willingness to negotiate

BEIJING: Washington has opened United States is not interested in promoting the collapse of the current regime, pursuing regime the peninsula or mobilising forces north of the DMZ, North Korean that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearisation,” department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

The US has not ruled out the use of force to compel Pyongyang to halt missile and nuclear tests, and last week Trump threatened to “totally destroy” the country.

the military options do not look promising, with ally South Korea’s densely populated capital Seoul in range of the North’s artillery.

Rocket man

Tillerson, meanwhile, has been a proponent of a campaign of “peaceful pressure”, using US and UN sanctions and working with China to turn the screw on the regime.

But his efforts have been overshadowed by an extraordinary war of words, with Trump mocking Kim as “little Rocket Man” and Kim branding the US leader a “dotard.”

Even as Tillerson met Xi and China’s top diplomats State Councillor Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the North’s barrage of insults.

The statement proclaimed Trump an “old psychopath” bent on the “suicidal act of inviting a nuclear disaster that will reduce

North Korea’s rhetoric has been backed by a provocative series of ballistic missile tests and on September 3 it conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test yet.

Washington, backed by most of the international community, has declared North Korea’s programme unacceptable, fearing that its own vast arsenal will not deter Kim from attack.