North Korea makes offer on weapons
Trump touts ‘good progress’ on potential talks with Kim
North Korea says it is willing to freeze nuclear weapons tests to engage in talks with the U.S., officials said.
SEOUL, South Korea — In a potential historic breakthrough, North Korea has offered to freeze its illicit nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs to engage in talks with the United States, South Korean officials said Tuesday. The move could signal a thaw in the nuclear impasse and a victory for President Donald Trump’s unconventional diplomacy.
The announcement came after South Korea’s spy chief and its top national security official returned Tuesday night to Seoul from a meeting in Pyongyang with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
South Korea said that Kim had offered to cease any new nuclear tests and missile launches as talks progress. North Korea has yet to confirm the South Korean account, but the apparent overture, if true, could help ease tensions in northeast Asia.
Pyongyang’s apparent agreement in principle to the idea of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula would match a longtime U.S. goal, but it came with significant caveats that could make a deal impossible to achieve.
“The North Korean side clearly stated its willingness to denuclearize,” South Korea’s government said in a statement. “It made it clear that it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North was eliminated and its security guaranteed.”
That broad wording could mean Pyongyang will insist the United States cease its annual military exercises with the South — or potentially leave the peninsula entirely, as North Korea has long sought. The United States has more than 20,000 troops deployed in South Korea.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump praised the prospect of the first direct U.S. talks with Pyongyang in years. “I think we’re having very good dialogue,” he said. “We have made good progress.”
Trump traded insults for much of last year with North Korea’s leader, mocking him as “Little Rocket Man.” He was more circumspect Tuesday, saying Kim’s government seems “to be acting positively, but we’re going to see.”
The North has tested four nuclear devices and dozens of ballistic missiles since 2013, raising fears it could soon attain the ability to launch a nuclear attack against the United States.
“If North Korea has really committed to denuclearizing, that is a positive step forward,” said Chun Yung-woo, a onetime national security adviser to former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said his country “stands ready to play a positive role” to ensure the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. China is North Korea’s largest trading partner, but it has increasingly enforced U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, a push that Trump publicly credited as “a big help” Tuesday.
The surprising announcement in Seoul followed a failed diplomatic outreach effort between Washington and Pyongyang a month ago.
The White House had secretly planned for Vice President Mike Pence, who led the U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, to meet with a high-ranking North Korean delegation on the sidelines, U.S. officials said later.
But the North called off the scheduled meeting after Pence said the Trump administration was planning to impose a harsh new set of economic sanctions.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, however, met with Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of Kim, during the Olympics, and a delegation of senior South Korean officials visited Pyongyang on Monday.
The United States and South Korea have planned to resume annual joint military drills after delaying them for the Games. It’s not clear if those exercises will be postponed again in a gesture to the North, which routinely condemns them as a pretext for invasion.
Some White House officials are worried that North Korea may use talks to buy time to secretly develop a nuclear warhead for a ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
Over the last three decades, North Korea has secretly lurched forward in its nuclear capabilities even during sporadic periods of engagement and diplomacy with the U.S. and other world powers.
The White House did not set denuclearization as a precondition for talks to start — a shift from Trump’s public position in recent months — but North Korea must agree to discuss giving up its nuclear program as part of any negotiations, the administration official said.
The Pentagon made clear it was skeptical of the North Korean offer.
Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, who heads the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a previously scheduled Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday that Kim “shows no interest in walking away from his nuclear or his ballistic missile programs. Additional missile launches are a near certainty, and further nuclear tests are possible.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who chairs the committee, then asked Ashley about the possibility of successful talks with North Korea.
“I don’t share your optimism,” Ashley said. “We’ll see how this plays out.”
Special correspondent Matt Stiles reported from Seoul and Washington Bureau reporter Christi Parsons from Washington. Bureau reporters Brian Bennett and Chris Megerian contributed.