Tensions between the United States and North Korea may finally be reaching a cooling point after a North Korean diplomat announced that a peaceful dialogue could soon be opened with its capital Pyongyang. However, it would only happen after certain conditions were met, as they claimed.
While speaking with reporters in Beijing this past Saturday, Choe Son Hui, North Korea's foreign ministry director general for US affairs, declared that after a few conditions were met, there could be a dialogue between the two nations in the future.
"We'll have dialogue if the conditions are there," said Choe, the veteran member of Pyongyang's team of nuclear negotiators.
Her comments come during increased international efforts to, per Al-Jazeera, “press North Korea and ease tension over its pursuit of nuclear arms.”
Al-Jazeera reports that Choe was leaving Norway when she returned to North Korea after attending the “Track Two” talks with former US government officials. A US government official was reportedly present, but no one from the Trump administration was involved in the meeting.
In a statement originally published by Reuters from a US State Department spokesperson, they declared that the United States would be open for a peaceful discussion if North Korea "cease all its illegal activities and aggressive behavior in the region".
"We have been clear over the past 20 years that we seek nothing but a stable and economically prosperous Korean peninsula," the statement read.
Last month, Trump stated in an interview that a "major, major conflict" with the infamous country was possible, however, he claimed that he would prefer a more diplomatic outcome. He also said that he would be more than willing to meet with its leader Kim Jong-un under the right conditions.
North Korea has since conducted five nuclear weapons tests in violations of U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
Source: aljazeera.com
