US directly communicating with North Korea, seeks dialogue

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China 30 September, 2017 – REUTERS

Beijing (Reuters): The United States said on Saturday it was directly communicating with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs but Pyongyang had shown no interest in dialogue.

The disclosure by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a trip to China represented the first time he has spoken to such an extent about U.S. outreach to North Korea over its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile.

“We are probing so stay tuned,” Tillerson told a group of reporters in Beijing.

“We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout.”

He said that communication was happening directly and cited two or three US channels open to Pyongyang.

“We can talk to them. We do talk to them,” he said, without elaborating about which Americans were involved in those contacts or how frequent or substantive they were.

The goal of any initial dialogue would be simple: finding out directly from North Korea what it wants to discuss.

“We haven’t even gotten that far yet,” he said.

Trying to tamp down expectations, the State Department said later there were no signs Pyongyang was interested in talks.

“North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization,” department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

Tillerson previously had offered little detail about US outreach. On 20 September, he acknowledged only “very, very limited” contact with Pyongyang’s UN envoy.

When asked about Tillerson’s assertion and what communication there might be between Pyongyang and Washington, a spokesman for the North Korean mission to the United Nations said he “can’t go further into detail.”