U.S.-N. Korea talks break down
Pyongyang’s envoy ‘displeased’ with Washington’s stance
Working-level talks with the U.S. on denuclearization broke down after Americans arrived at the meetings in Stockholm “empty-handed,” said Kim Myong Gil, the top North Korean nuclear envoy, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.
The two sides were holding working-level discussions, with formal negotiations starting — and apparently ending — on Saturday after preliminary contact on Friday.
“The negotiation did not live up to our expectations and broke down. I am very displeased,” Kim said, according to Yonhap. The U.S. “has not discarded its old stance and attitude.”
State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said Kim’s comments did “not reflect the content or the spirit” of the “good discussions” that took place over eight-and-a-half hours, adding that the U.S. accepted an invitation from Sweden to return to Stockholm in two weeks to continue discussions.
In a statement, Ortagus said the U.S. delegation “previewed a number of new initiatives that
would allow us to make progress in each of the four pillars” of a joint statement issued after President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first summit in Singapore.
“The United States and the DPRK [North Korea] will not overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula through the course of a single Saturday,” Ortagus said.
The Stockholm talks were the first in about eight months between the U.S. and North Korea. They came as the government in Pyongyang has been pushing the Trump administration to ease sanctions that are choking its economy, while attempting to increase its leverage through a series of military provocations.
North Korea tested a new, submarine-based ballistic missile on Wednesday, according to the official Korean News Agency. It was the longest-range weapon tested by Pyongyang since November 2017, and the first sent from a submarine in almost three years. South Korea’s military estimated the missile flew 565 miles into space before falling into the sea.
The talks in Stockholm were led by Stephen Biegun, U.S. special envoy for North Korea, and his counterpart, Kim, Yonhap reported earlier.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier on Saturday in Greece offered cautious optimism on the talks.
“We came with a set of ideas. We hope that the North Koreans came with a good spirit and a willingness to try to move forward to implement what President Trump and Chairman Kim [Jong Un] agreed to back in Singapore,” Pompeo said at a news conference in Athens, according to a State Department transcript.
The U.S. delegation in Sweden was “a broad team with a full range of expertise,” Pompeo said, casting ahead to the potential for more talks in coming weeks and months.
Trump and North Korean leader Kim held summits in Singapore in June 2018 and in Vietnam in February. They had a third, informal meeting June 30 at the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula. Trump walked across the border to become the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korean territory.
Personal diplomacy with Kim has been a cornerstone of Trump’s foreign policy, but the warm feelings haven’t translated into progress in nuclear disarmament by North Korea. Kim has given Trump until the end of the year to change course or risk a new path.
“They want to talk, and we’ll be talking to them soon,” Trump said Thursday, brushing off the overnight ballistic missile launch. In August, Trump tweeted that Kim had made “a small apology” for testing the short-range missiles while the U.S. and South Korean militaries were engaged in a joint exercise.
Since Trump and Kim first met, weapons experts have said North Korea has been adding fissile material to its nuclear arsenal and improving its ability to launch a nuclear strike against the U.S. and two of its key Asian allies, Japan and South Korea.