Person walks past banner showing North Korean and American flags (File | Reuters)
Seoul:
US envoy arrived in South Korea on Tuesday to resume blocked nuclear talks with North Korea, hours after he issued a statement saying he had no plans to sit down with the states United and telling South Korea to “stop mixing.”
US Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, who chaired working talks with the North Koreans, landed at an American military base south of Seoul, media reports said, and was scheduled to meet with South Korean officials on Wednesday and Thursday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Kwon Jong Gun, director general of US affairs at the North Korean foreign ministry, accused South Korea of misinterpreting a North Korean statement rejecting an “untimely rumor” about another summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump.
North Korea said on Saturday that it did not feel the need for a new summit, days after South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had offered to mediate between Kim and Trump, suggested that the two leaders meet again before the US elections in November.
“It is just time for (South Korea) to stop interfering in the affairs of others, but there seems to be no cure or prescription for its bad habit,” said Kwon in a statement issued by the official KCNA North news agency.
“Explicitly again, we do not intend to meet face to face with the United States.”
Trump and Kim first met in 2018 in Singapore, raising hopes for a negotiated end to the North Korean nuclear program. But their second summit, in 2019 in Vietnam, and subsequent negotiations at the operational level collapsed.
Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Kwon’s statement reflected persistent inter-Korean tension and North Korea’s position that nuclear issues should only be discussed with United States.
“He also suggested that the North Koreans would abandon the past concept of negotiations in which the South played a brokerage role and would not return to the table without major American concessions,” said Yang.
Biegun said last week that it was time for the two sides to re-engage and “make substantial progress”, but the new coronavirus pandemic would make a summit in person difficult before the US presidential elections on November 3.
The coronavirus also made Biegun’s visit more personal.
Newspaper reported that due to the epidemic, the envoy would not go to a Korean chicken soup restaurant which was a regular stop on previous visits, and had instead arranged for the dish to be prepared at the residence of the American ambassador.
Last month, North Korea suddenly increased tensions with South Korea and blew up a joint liaison office, just on its side of the border, before just as suddenly suspending unspecified military action plans.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Chris Reese, Howard Goller and Lincoln Feast)
(This story has not been edited by GalacticGaming staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
