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 by Staff Writers Beijing (AFP) May 13, 2017
A senior North Korean diplomat said Saturday Pyongyang would be willing to hold talks with the United States if the conditions are right. Choe Son-Hui, head of the foreign ministry's North America bureau, told reporters at Beijing's international airport that her country "will hold dialogue under right conditions" with President Donald Trump's administration. She spoke as she was returning home from Oslo, where she met with US academics and former US officials including Thomas Pickering, former US envoy to the UN, and Robert Einhorn, the State Department's former special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, Seoul's Yonhap news agency said. The meeting took place amid a let-up in military tensions on the Korean peninsula after concerns over a fresh nuclear test by the North aimed to mark high-profile anniversaries in April failed to materialise. After threatening military action, Trump said earlier this month he would be "honoured" to meet the North's leader Kim Jong-Un under the right conditions. South Korea's new president Moon Jae-In, who took office this week, favours engagement with Pyongyang to bring it to the negotiating table, unlike his conservative predecessors. He said after he was sworn on Wednesday that he would be willing to go to North Korea "in the right circumstances." When asked whether Pyongyang is preparing to hold dialogue with the South's new government, Choe replied: "We will see".
N. Korea demands extradition of South's spy chief Last week Pyongyang's powerful ministry of state security said it had foiled a plot by the US and South Korean spy agencies to kill Kim using a biochemical weapon. The accusations came amid tensions over the North's nuclear and missile programmes and with Washington considering whether to re-designate Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism. That follows the February killing of Kim's estranged half-brother Kim Jong-Nam by two women using the banned nerve agent VX -- a murder widely blamed on Pyongyang. The North's Central Public Prosecutors Office said Friday it was opening the prosecution of those responsible for what it called "state-sponsored terrorism" against Kim Jong-Un. It named South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Lee Byung-Ho, an NIS team director surnamed Han, NIS agent Jo Ki-Chol, and Chinese businessman Xu Guanghai as suspects, along with "masterminds in CIA". "We urge the relevant authorities to immediately detect and arrest and hand over" the wanted individuals, who were "targets of due heavy punishment", it said in a statement carried by Pyongyang's state media. "None of the brutal perpetrators of hideous state-sponsored terrorism aiming at the removal of the DPRK supreme leadership will survive on this planet," it added, using the acronym for the North's official name. Rights groups accuse the North of widespread abuses, including an absence of fair trials. The North is technically still at war with the South and has no diplomatic relations with the US, but China is its sole major ally. Xu was described as director general of the Qingdao NAZCA Trade Co. Checks by AFP on Chinese databases show a company of that name was founded on March 7 this year, with Xu named as its legal representative. A spokesman for the NIS said the South's spy agency had no information about the alleged assassination plot. Pyongyang has said a North Korean citizen named only as Kim was bribed and blackmailed to carry out the attack. But any attempt on Kim would be extremely difficult to pull off due to supertight security around him and Pyongyang's extensive surveillance of its own population.
New S.Korean president talks to China, Japan leadersSeoul (AFP) May 11, 2017 South Korea's new president Moon Jae-In spoke to the leaders of China and Japan Thursday, hours after a telephone call with his US counterpart Donald Trump, officials said, as he began shaping his approach to the nuclear-armed North. Moon favours engagement with Pyongyang to bring it to the negotiating table, unlike his conservative predecessors and the US Trump administration, which backs s ... read more Related Links Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com All about missiles at SpaceWar.com Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com
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