Tillerson says N. Korea must ‘earn’ way to talks
WASHINGTON — America’s top diplomat stepped back Friday from his offer of unconditional talks with North Korea, telling world powers that the nuclear-armed nation must earn the right to negotiate with the United States.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s declaration before the United Nations Security Council marked an about-face after he proposed discussions with Pyongyang without preconditions earlier this week. That overture was almost immediately rebutted by White House officials.
Still, Tillerson had planned to reiterate his call at a special U.N. ministerial meeting on North Korea at the council Friday morning. His prepared remarks had suggested only that North Korea would have to undertake a sustained halt in its threatening behavior before talks could begin. But Tillerson changed the script.
“North Korea must earn its way back to the table,” Tillerson told the foreign ministers. “The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization
is achieved. We will in the meantime keep our channels of communication open.”
The debate over offering North Korea unconditional talks reflects the differences within President Donald Trump’s administration as it runs out of time to prevent North Korea from perfecting a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike the U.S. mainland. Trump has vowed to prevent such capability, with military action if necessary.
So far, U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea and diplomatic isolation haven’t compelled Kim Jong Un’s government to stop its nuclear and missile tests, or to seek negotiations.
Asked Friday if he supported unconditional talks, Trump did not answer directly.
“Well, we’re going to see what happens with North Korea. We have a lot of support. There are a lot of nations that agree with us — almost everybody,” Trump told reporters. He credited China — which accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s external trade — with helping to put pressure on North Korea, but he lamented that Russia was not doing the same.
“We’d like to have Russia’s help — very important,” said Trump. He raised the matter in a Thursday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the matter of starting talks with North Korea, Tillerson’s tone was significantly different from three days earlier.
On Tuesday, Tillerson said at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington that “we are ready to have the first meeting without preconditions.” He had also called it “unrealistic” to expect North Korea to enter talks ready to relinquish a weapons of mass destruction program it invested so much in developing, although that remained the ultimate goal.
The White House quickly distanced itself from Tillerson’s remarks. On Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesman said North Korea must not only first refrain from provocations but also take “sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearization” for talks to happen. The spokesman, who was not authorized to be quoted by name and requested anonymity, said that given North Korea’s most recent missile test, now was not the time for talks.
Even with the White House’s push-back, the U.S. special envoy for North Korea on Friday expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Tillerson’s diplomatic offer of unconditional talks.
Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok that the talks could take place without preconditions and would serve Washington’s dual approach of pressure and engagement on Pyongyang over its nuclear program.
“I think what Secretary Tillerson spoke to was we want to have a dialogue with them. We are open to dialogue and we hope they will agree to have a dialogue,” said Yun at the end of a two-nation tour that also included a stop in Tokyo.
“Let’s see how they respond … I am very hopeful that diplomacy has a long way to go before any next steps are considered.”
Tillerson and Trump have appeared to clash before on North Korea, amid questions about the former Exxon Mobil executive’s future as top diplomat. In October, Trump said Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with the North. Trump’s tweet came after Tillerson’s talk about Washington maintaining back-channel communications with Pyongyang.
Asked Friday if he and Trump were on the same page, Tillerson denied they were at odds: “The president’s policy on North Korea is quite clear and there’s no daylight at all between the president’s policy and the pursuit of that policy.”
He said U.S. communication channels with North Korea remain open and the North knows that.
“They know where the door is. They know where to walk through that door when they want to talk,” he told reporters.
North Korea’s U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, did not mention the possibility of talks with the U.S. in his rare appearance before the Security Council on Friday. He said its possession of nuclear weapons was self-defense against “U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail.”
RUSSIA, CHINA RESPOND
Tillerson on Friday also called on China and Russia to go beyond U.N.-mandated economic sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests.
He said North Korean laborers were toiling in “slavelike conditions” in Russia for wages used to fund nuclear weapons, while China was still allowing crude oil to flow into North Korean refineries.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said North Korean workers in Russia were guaranteed their rights, and he questioned U.S. commitment to a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
He also rejected Tillerson’s call for “unilateral” action outside the Security Council.
China’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Wu Haitao, called for early resumption of dialogue.
“It is not helpful to impose on any one party the responsibility for resolving the problem,” Wu said. “The parties should move toward each other instead of engaging in mutual blaming.”
Japan, meanwhile, froze the assets of 19 companies in an effort to pressure North Korea to return Japanese citizens that it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s and to halt its nuclear-weapons and missile development.
The companies, which have already been sanctioned by the United States, deal in finance, coal and minerals, transport — including shipping — and the sending of North Korean workers overseas.
The stakes regarding the North’s nuclear program have only grown in recent days. North Korea said the most recent test showed it was capable of hitting the entire U.S. And a U.N. envoy to North Korea, Jeffrey Feltman, returned from a recent trip to the country deeply worried about the prospects for bringing an end to Kim’s nuclear-weapons program.
North Korea has conducted more than 20 ballistic-missile tests during 2017 as well as its most powerful nuclear explosion to date.
Tillerson said the North’s growing capabilities were a “direct threat to our security and the security of the entire world. We do not regard this claim as an empty threat.” arkansasonline.com/northkorea
He said the U.S. does not want war but “will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression.”
He said “our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who’s discussed North Korea while golfing with Trump, told the Atlantic magazine this week that he believes “there’s a 3-in-10 chance we use the military option” and a 70 percent chance that North Korea again tests a nuclear bomb.
In opening Friday’s Security Council session, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the world to start communicating with North Korea to reduce the risk of “miscalculation or misunderstanding.”
“It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels, including inter-Korean and military-to-military channels,” Guterres said. “This is critical to lower the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding and reduce tensions in the region.”