US ready for talks with North Korea
washington — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered to begin direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions, backing away from a key US demand that Pyongyang must first accept that giving up its nuclear arsenal would be part of any negotiations.
Tillerson’s new diplomatic overture comes nearly two weeks after North Korea said it had successfully tested an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that put the entire United States mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.
“Let’s just meet,” Tillerson said in a speech to Washington’s Atlantic Council think tank on Tuesday.
The White House later issued an ambiguous statement that left unclear whether President Donald Trump - who has said Tillerson was wasting his time pursuing dialogue with North Korea - had given his approval for the speech.
“The president’s views on North Korea have not changed,” the White House said. “North Korea is acting in an unsafe way ... North Korea’s actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea.”
Russia on Wednesday said it welcomed US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s statement that Washington is ready for talks with North Korea without preconditions, calling this a constructive approach.
“We can state that such con- structive statements impress us far more than the confrontational rhetoric that we have heard up to now. Undoubtedly this can be welcomed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Ahead of Tillerson’s speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to develop more nuclear weapons while personally decorating scientists and officials who contributed to the development of Pyongyang’s most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile, according to North Korean state media on Wednesday.
Kim said on Tuesday the scientists and workers would continue manufacturing “more latest weapons and equipment” to “bolster up the nuclear force in quality and quantity”, the KCNA news agency reported.
United Nations political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman said senior North Korean officials did not offer any type of commitment to talks, but he believes he left “the door ajar”.
“Time will tell what was the impact of our discussions, but I think we have left the door ajar and I fervently hope that the door to a negotiated solution will now be opened wide,” Feltman told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Not everyone is ready for talks. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will stress to the United Nations secretary-general his opposition to talks with North Korea and will instead urge maximum pressure to get it to abandon its weapons programmes, a Japanese official said.
Tillerson also disclosed the United States had been talking to China about how to secure North Korea’s nuclear weapons in the event of a collapse of the government in Pyongyang. He said Beijing had been given assurances that if U.S. forces had to cross into North Korea they would pull back across the border into the South.
However, he made clear that the United States wants to resolve the North Korea standoff through peaceful diplomacy and, in terms far more tempered than Trump’s recent threats against Pyongyang, offered to hold exploratory talks.
“We can talk about the weather if you want. We can talk about whether it’s going to be a square table or a round table,” he said. “Then we can begin to lay out a map, a road map, of what we might be willing to work towards.” —