President Donald Trump is open to the US holding talks with North Korea "under the right circumstances," the White House said Wednesday after South Korean President Moon Jae-In signalled a willingness to sit down with Kim Jong-Un. Signs of a potential cooling following months of red-hot tensions on the Korean peninsula came the day after Pyongyang reached a landmark agreement to send athletes to the Winter Olympics in the South, a move the international community broadly welcomed.
In a phone call with Moon, Trump expressed his openness to talks with Pyongyang "at the appropriate time, under the right circumstances," the White House said. The two leaders also "underscored the importance of continuing the maximum pressure campaign against North Korea," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders added in a statement confirming a South Korea account of the call.
China, the North's main trading and diplomatic ally, welcomed the talks between the two Koreas with President Xi Jinping also calling Moon on Thursday. Xi told his South Korea counterpart he "supports the two sides in promoting inter-Korean dialogue and exchanges to gradually advance the settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue," the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the Chinese leader as saying.
The Xinhua report did not mention the possibility of potential US talks with Pyongyang. The Olympics in Pyeongchang next month have long been overshadowed by geopolitical tensions, with the North repeatedly test-firing missiles it says are capable of reaching the US mainland, and detonating its most powerful nuclear device to date. But Pyongyang - which boycotted the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul - agreed Tuesday to send athletes and officials to the Games as the North and South held their first formal talks in two years at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone.
"It is only the beginning," Moon told a press conference. "Yesterday was the first step and I think we had a good start." "Bringing North Korea to talks for denuclearization is the next step we must take."
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.