US ‘would show flexibility in nuclear talks’

SEOUL: The recent nuclear deal with Iran showed that the US can be flexible with a willing counterpart, including North Korea if it decides it wants talks on its nuclear programme, a US envoy said yesterday.

North Korea has said it was not interested in an Iran-like dialogue with the US to give up nuclear capabilities, which it said were an “essential deterrence” against hostile US policy.

Despite that, Sydney Seiler, US special envoy for nowdefunct six-party talks on ending the North’s nuclear programme, said the US left the door open to talks with the North when it is willing to end its diplomatic isolation.

“The Iran deal demon- strates the value and possibilities that negotiations bring,” Seiler told reporters in the South Korean capital, Seoul.

“It demonstrates again our willingness, when we have a willing counterpart, and it demonstrates our flexibility when the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) makes a decision that it wants to take a different path.”

Seiler is on a trip to the region that will include stops in China and Japan aimed at trying to jump-start the North Korean talks which broke down in 2008. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, the last in February 2013, and now calls itself a nuclear weapons state. News reports said the North has upgraded a missile platform. – Reuters