SEOUL, South Korea – The United States is ready to restart nuclear negotiations with North Korea, a senior US diplomat said Wednesday, a day after US and South Korean militaries ended their regular drills.
During the 10-day training, North Korea raised tensions with its own missile and other weapons tests. But North Korea’s typical harsh rhetoric over the drills largely focused on South Korea, not the United States, in a suggestion that it’s still interested in resuming nuclear talks with the US, as Associated Press reported.
President Donald Trump said recently he received a “beautiful” three-page letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, adding Kim wanted to meet again to restart the talks after the US-South Korean drills ended and that Kim offered him “a small apology” over a series of weapons tests.
On Wednesday, Trump’s top envoy on North Korea, Stephen Biegun, told reporters in Seoul, as AP quoted, “we are prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea.”
Biegun said that Trump assigned his team to restart working-level talks with North Korea, in line with what Trump and Kim agreed during their third summit in late June.
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“I am fully committed to this important mission and we will get this done,” Beigun said.
Beigun was in Seoul for talks with South Korea, where Lee Do-hoon said the two discussed how to quickly resume the nuclear negotiations and produce “substantial progress.”
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