Seoul, Oct 1: The United States and North Korea have endorsed to hold official working-level dialogues on October 5, Pyongyang’s state-run KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
Both sides also agreed to have a preliminary discussion on October 4 ahead of the working-level meeting, the agency reported, citing an official statement issued under the name of North Korea’s foreign minister.
North Korea has on Monday blamed the United States for the stalled negotiations aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, said Kim Song, the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations (UN), adding it all “depends on the US” whether two nations “become a window of opportunity or an occasion that will hasten the crisis”.
North Korea and the US have been at loggerhead since the stalled negotiations in February, when President Donald Trump and N Korean leader Kim Jong-un held their second historic summit in Vietnam.
However, the summit ended abruptly due to both leaders’ differences over the matter, as Kim stressed for sanctions relief, whereas Trump stood on his stance of the North Korean leader’s last year promise to fully denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
On August 23, North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho has described US secretary of state Mike Pompeo as a “poisonous plant of American diplomacy”, pledging to “shutter the absurd dream” of the United States.
Ri has also blamed Pompeo for casting dark shadows over the North Korea-US negotiations, claiming the American diplomat was way more interested in his own politics that in pertaining Washington’s foreign policy.