A senior North Korean diplomat, who handles relations with the United States, said on Saturday Pyongyang would have dialogue with the U.S. administration if conditions were right, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry director general for U.S. affairs, made the comment to reporters in Beijing as she was travelling home from Norway, Yonhap said.
“We’ll have dialogue if the conditions are there,” she told reporters when asked if the North was preparing to hold talks with the Trump administration, according to Yonhap.
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.”
U.S. President Donald Trump warned in an interview with Reuters 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 programmes.
Trump’s comment
Mr. Trump later said he would be “honoured” to meet North’s leader Kim Jong-un under the right conditions.
Ms. Choe was in Norway for so-called Track Two talks with former U.S. government officials, according to Japanese media, the latest in a series of such meetings.
