The United States said Tuesday it hoped to hold denuclearization talks with North Korea, after Pyongyang warned that US-South Korean military exercises could affect their planned resumption.
The North had earlier Tuesday hinted it could even reconsider its moratorium on nuclear testing over next month’s drills, which have been held for years but were scaled down to ease tensions with Pyongyang.
It was the North’s first statement on the talks since US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to a resumption of dialogue at an impromptu meeting in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas on June 30.
Responding to the North’s statement, the State Department said it remained upbeat over commitments made by Kim and Trump during their June encounter and at a February summit in Vietnam.
“From our perspective, we would hope that no one would try to block, in their government or our government, the ability for President Trump and Chairman Kim to make progress on the commitments they made to each other in Vietnam,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters.
“We look forward, of course, to resuming those negotiations and we hope to talk, always, so we can advance progress on these commitments.”
The South Korean government also said on Wednesday it expected the talks to go ahead and that it hoped they would result in “practical progress”.
There are close to 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea.
Their annual drills with tens of thousands of South Korean soldiers have always infuriated the North — with Pyongyang condemning the manoeuvres as rehearsals for invasion.
Following Trump’s first historic summit with Kim in Singapore last year, the US president announced the suspension of what he called Washington’s “very provocative” joint military exercises with South Korea.
But a smaller-scale version of the exercises were held in March, with more scheduled for August.