WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Sunday offered North Korea direct talks, without preconditions, over its nuclear and missile programs after Pyongyang fired a Hwasong-12 missile, the first of such a series. power since 2017.
“We believe it’s totally timely and totally correct to start having serious discussions,” a senior official in Joe Biden’s administration told reporters.
Since the accession to the White House of the Democratic president in January 2021, the United States has several times tried in vain to launch talks.
Previously, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had met three times with Donald Trump without succeeding in obtaining a lifting of the sanctions that have hit North Korea since its first nuclear tests more than fifteen years ago.
According to the senior American official, the latest test carried out by the North Koreans is part of an increasingly marked desire to destabilize and contravenes the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
“Of course we are concerned” by the risk that North Korea will resume tests of intercontinental missiles or nuclear weapons, frozen since 2017, added this senior official.
“It requires a response,” he said. “You will see us take certain steps to show our commitment to our allies…and at the same time we reiterate our call for diplomacy. We stand ready and we are very serious in trying to have discussions that will address the concerns of both parties.”
(Report David Brunnstrom and Steve Holland; French version Jean-Stphane Brosse)