US envoy says Washington stays prepared to satisfy with Pyongyang ‘with out preconditions’.
A senior United States diplomat has urged North Korea to finish a latest collection of missile checks and resume negotiations, days after Pyongyang carried out its first underwater-launched ballistic missile launch in two years.
Sung Kim, the highest US official on North Korea affairs, spoke on Sunday after assembly with South Korean officers to debate North Korea’s latest streak of missile checks that got here amid a long-running stalemate in nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang.
“We name on the DPRK to stop these provocations and different destabilising actions, and as a substitute, have interaction in dialogue,” Kim advised reporters, referring to North Korea by its official identify, the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea.
“We stay prepared to satisfy with the DPRK with out preconditions and we have now made clear that the USA harbours no hostile intent in the direction of the DPRK,” he mentioned.
Final Tuesday, North Korea fired a newly developed ballistic missile from a submarine in its fifth spherical of weapons checks in latest weeks. South Korean officers mentioned the submarine-fired missile seems to be in an early stage of growth.
Nonetheless, that marked the North’s first underwater-launched check since October in 2019 and probably the most high-profile one since President Joe Biden took workplace in January.
Missiles fired from submarines are more durable to detect prematurely and would offer North Korea with a secondary, retaliatory assault functionality.
The launch violates a number of United Nations Safety Council resolutions imposed on the North and “poses a menace to the DPRK’s neighbors and the worldwide group,” Kim mentioned.
The Biden administration has repeatedly mentioned it’s prepared to satisfy North Korea “wherever and at any time” with out preconditions.
However North Korea says a return to talks is conditional on the US dropping what it calls a hostile coverage towards Pyongyang, an obvious reference to US-led sanctions and common army drills between Washington and Seoul.