North Korea confirms it is willing to talk denuclearisation
Washington: North Korea has confirmed directly to the Trump administration that it is willing to negotiate with the United States over potential denuclearisation, administration officials said.
The confirmation on Sunday evening, US time, offers the administration greater assurances that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is committed to a potential meeting with President Donald Trump by the end of next month.
Trump and Kim are expected to meet in May.
Photo: AP"The US has confirmed that Kim Jong-un is willing to discuss the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula," an administration official said.
South Korean emissaries, in a visit to the White House last month, had presented Kim's invitation to meet with Trump, who quickly agreed.
But Pyongyang has been silent publicly since then about a summit, even as Kim visited Beijing earlier this month in his first visit outside North Korea since assuming control of the country after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011. During that visit Kim was reported by Beijing as having committed to denuclearisation. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the North has confirmed the offer to the United States.
Kim Jong-un talks with South Korean Culture Minister Do Jong-hwan during a performance by a South Korean art troupe in Pyongyang last month.
Photo: AAPTrump said last month that he was willing to have the historic meeting with Kim and instructed his aides to arrange it before the end of May. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to make a two-day visit with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the President's resort near Palm Beach, Florida, to coordinate strategy between the allies. South Korean President Moon Jae-in plans to meet with Kim at the end of April in the demilitarised zone between the North and South.
White House officials have not said where the Trump-Kim summit will be held. The agenda of the meeting is not yet known, and North Korea has not been clear about what steps it is willing to take to move toward the goal.
North Korea tests a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile on November 29, and vows to never give up its nuclear weapons as long as the United States and its allies continue their “blackmail and war drills”.
Photo: KNS/APDuring previous negotiations under different US administrations, the North had agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions, only to violate the agreement by testing more weapons.
Washington Post