US might talk to NKorea without preconditions

SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. officials told South Korea’s president they are willing to hold direct negotiations with North Korea, a spokesman for President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday, indicating a shift in the Trump administration’s policy.

The statement came just days after Vice President Mike Pence visited Pyeongchang, South Korea, which is hosting the Winter Olympics, and met with Moon. Since the vice president’s departure Saturday, reports of an understanding between Washington and Seoul on the possibility of dialogue have appeared in the news media, but South Korean officials would not confirm them until Tuesday.

“The United States too looks positively at SouthNorth Korean dialogue and has expressed its willingness to start dialogue with the North,” Moon’s spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom, told reporters.

Dialogue with the North has been used by successive U.S. administrations as a carrot — paired with the stick of sanctions — in the hopes of getting the isolated nation to end its nuclear weapons program. Until recently, Trump administration officials insisted no such meetings would take place until the North had taken steps toward disarmament.

President Donald Trump recently described Moon’s overtures to the North as “appeasement.” And when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in December that the U.S. was willing to hold a “meeting without precondition,” the White House said his comments were premature.

But after he left South Korea, Pence suggested to The Washington Post that the United States is open to a meeting, even indicating it would enter talks without preconditions.

“So the maximum pressure campaign is going to continue and intensify,” Pence said of the sanctions imposed on the North. “But if you want to talk, we’ll talk.”

Agreeing to talks before the North Koreans have demonstrated a willingness to dismantle their weapons program would be a potentially significant shift in Washington’s approach, and a win for Moon, who has hoped to bring North Korea and the U.S. to the negotiating table.