Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s foreign ministry director general for US affairs, voiced his country’s preparedness to hold talks with Trump administration when speaking to reporters in Beijing on Saturday as she was travelling home from Norway.
“We’ll have dialogue if the conditions are there,” she said when asked if the North was preparing to hold talks with the Trump administration, Yonhap reported.
When asked if North Korea was also preparing to talk with the new government in South Korea, of liberal President Moon Jae-in, Choe said: “We’ll see.”
The comments by Choe, who is a veteran member of the North’s team of nuclear negotiators, came amid stepped up international efforts to press North Korea and ease tension over its pursuit of nuclear arms.
US President Donald Trump warned in an interview in late April that a “major, major conflict” with the North was possible but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs. Trump later said he would be “honoured” to meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, under the right conditions.
