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 US 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 September 20, 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.”
OVERHEATED SITUATION
Tillerson’s remarks followed a day of meetings in Beijing, which has been alarmed by recent exchanges of war-like threats and personal insults between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump.
”I think the whole situation’s a bit overheated right now,“ Tillerson said. ”I think everyone would like for it to calm down.
“Obviously it would help if North Korea would stop firing off missiles. That’d calm things down a lot.”
South Korean officials have voiced concerns that North Korea could conduct more provocative acts near the anniversary of the founding of its communist party on October 10, or possibly when China holds its Communist Party Congress on October 18.
North Korea is fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland. It conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on September 3 and has threatened to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific.
US officials including Tillerson say Beijing, after long accounting for some 90% of North Korea’s foreign trade, appears increasingly willing to cut ties to its neighbor’s economy by adopting U.N. sanctions.
Tillerson said China’s more assertive posture was due to its realization that North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities had advanced too far.
“I think they also have a sense that we’re beginning to run out of time and that we really have to change the dynamic,” Tillerson said.
The goal of the sanctions would be getting North Korea’s Kim to view nuclear weapons as a liability, not a strength.
Still, the US intelligence community does not believe Kim is likely to give up his weapons program willingly, regardless of sanctions.
“(Tillerson‘s) working against the unified view of our intelligence agencies, which say there’s no amount of pressure that can be put on them to stop,” Senator Bob Corker told a hearing at the chamber on Thursday.
Kim sees nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles as “his ticket to survival,” Corker said.
Tillerson agreed that Kim’s nuclear and missile programs were aimed at ensuring his own security, and renewed assurances that the United States did not seek to topple Kim’s government.
“Look, our objective is denuclearization (of North Korea),” he said. “Our objective is not to get rid of you. Our objective is not to collapse your regime.”
INCREMENTAL STEPS
It is unclear how and when any actual negotiations with Pyongyang might be possible.
White House national security adviser H R McMaster said on Monday there were no set preconditions for talks. He added, however, that Pyongyang’s capabilities were too far advanced to simply freeze its program in return for concessions.
He also dismissed the idea of negotiating with Pyongyang even as it continued to develop its nuclear weapons program.
Tillerson in March suggested the US would only engage North Korea in negotiations once it gave up nuclear weapons. But he acknowledged on Saturday that denuclearization would be an “incremental process.”
“You’d be foolish to think you’re going to sit down and say: OK, done. Nuclear weapons, gone. This is going to be a process of engagement with North Korea,” he said.
Trump, who is due to visit China in November, has called for it to do more regarding North Korea and has promised to take steps to rebalance a trade relationship that his administration says puts US businesses at a disadvantage.
Chinese President Xi Jinping did not mention North Korea in his opening remarks while meeting Tillerson on Saturday. He instead offered warm words about Trump, saying he expected the US president’s visit to be “wonderful.”
“The two of us have also maintained a good working relationship and personal friendship,” Xi said in comments in front of reporters.
Tillerson has an uphill struggle convincing North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons. War does not seem to be a good option for Tillerson. US Army analyses show it will take more than 56 days to secure the nuclear sites and missile sites. It will require more soldiers than in the Iraq + Afghan war combined.
Western MSM seem to have given us a very one-sided version of the facts about North Korea and those who have lived in North Korea have a more balanced impression. We must remember the history of all the atrocities and human rights violations during the Korean war.
It would certainly help we apologize for the war crimes and the starvation that later followed due to UN sanctions. Russia and China seems to be genuinely concerned since their countries would be affected. The US seems to have moderated the rhetoric. There are war hawks in Washington and Israel that fear nukes could be exported to Iran.
The only solution to the problem is for USA to remove all its soldiers and military equipment out of Korea. Short of this, USA is putting at risk the lives of tens of millions of its population.
Korea belongs to the Koreans. American soldiers have no place in Korea like American soldiers had no place in Vietnam. Peace came to Vietnam and the surrounding countries, Laos and Cambodia, after the Vietnamese kicked all American soldiers out of Vietnam. Similarly, peace will come to Korea when all American soldiers will have been removed out of Korea.
Mr Tillison, appeasement never works. It now seems to be the policy that the US will have to live with a nuclear North Korea. As Kim gets his way he will demand that the US leave South Korea and Japan and other areas. Nuclear blackmail will be the order of the day. Trump could have ended this months ago but instead followed the past presidents and kicked the can down the road.
Mr Tillerson is not appeasing. Mr Tillerson is only demanding NK to give up its H-bombs and its ICBMs. This demand is obviously not acceptable to NK, because NK knows that if it gave up its H-bombs and its ICBMs, NK would suffer the fate of Iraq and Libya. You are right to state that when NK will have set up its nuclear force, it will demand USA to remove all American soldiers and American military equipment out of Korea. NK will also demand USA to pay compensations for all the wrongs done to Korea since 1950. The wrongs include: the invasion of Korea in 1950, the massacre of millions of Koreans between 1950 and 1953, the destruction of the equivalent of hundreds of billions dollars of infrastructures during the same period, the occupation of part of Korea from 1960 to date, the UN sanctions on NK induced by USA. NK has already set up a committee to assess the damages.