US to Discuss North Korea High-Level Talks Offer

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RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED June 17, 2013

The United States will discuss North Korea's offer to hold high-level talks at a meeting with South Korean and Japanese officials in Washington this week.

"We will be meeting with our Japanese and South Korean partners in a trilateral setting and this will be one of the subjects for discussion," Al Jazeera reported citing a senior US administration official on Sunday. The talks are due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

North Korea proposed regional security talks with the United States on Sunday, following the recent failure to resume direct talks with rival South Korea, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The move came five days after planned negotiations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea collapsed over Pyongyang’s claim that Seoul fielded negotiators of insufficient rank.

The DPRK complained that South Korea had deliberately hindered the resumption of the talks.

"Our desire is to have credible negotiations with the North Koreans, but those talks must involve North Korea living up to its obligations to the world," including UN resolutions, and "ultimately result in denuclearization," AP quoted National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden as saying.

Denis McDonough, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, said Washington will only engage in “real talks” with North Korea. "So we'll judge them by their actions, not by the nice words that we heard," he said.

The two Koreas technically remain "at war" since no peace treaty was signed when the Korean War ended in 1953.

Tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula earlier this year after North Korea conducted new nuclear and missile tests. Pyongyang threatened Seoul and the United States with war and closed off the joint industrial zone in Kaesong following a new round of international sanctions, but later voiced willingness to negotiate.

Topics: Asia, DPRK, South Korea, USA

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