New US envoy offers to meet N Korea anywhere, anytime

Sung Kim arrived in Seoul on Saturday for a three-way meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts over the denuclearisation issue….reports Asian Lite News

Sung Kim, the newly appointed US special envoy for North Korea on Monday offered to meet with Pyongyang “anywhere, anytime, without preconditions”, with no public contact so far between the Biden administration and the nuclear-armed nation, media reported.

Sung Kim arrived in Seoul on Saturday for a three-way meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts over the denuclearisation issue.

“We continue to hope that the DPRK will respond positively to our outreach, and our offer to meet anywhere anytime without preconditions,” reports quoted Sung Kim as saying.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser (NSA) Jake Sullivan said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s remarks that Pyongyang should be ready for a dialogue, as well as a confrontation with Washington, were an “interesting signal”.

The remarks made during a key Workers’ Party meeting on June 17 in Pyongyang marked the first time that Kim spoke of the US since President Joe Biden took office in January.

“His comments we regard as an interesting signal. And we will wait to see whether they are followed up with any kind of more direct communication to us about a potential path forward,” Sullivan said during an interview with ABC News on Sunday.

He reaffirmed that the Biden administration is prepared to engage in “principled negotiations” with Pyongyang to deal with its nuclear program, with the ultimate objective of the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

The Biden administration at the end of April completed its policy review towards North Korea.

The White House said it had reached out to Pyongyang through several channels but had not yet received any response.

Kim Jong-un and former US President Donald Trump held their first summit in Singapore in June 2018, agreeing on a complete denuclearisation of and a lasting peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula.

Denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington have been stalled since the second Kim-Trump summit ended without agreement in February 2019 in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

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