North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in a June 30 meeting with US President Donald Trump to reopen working-level talks stalled since their failed February summit in Hanoi, but this has yet to happen in spite of repeated appeals from Washington.
In a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, Vice North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said Pyongyang was willing to have “comprehensive discussions” with the US this month at a time and place agreed between both sides.
A US State Department spokeswoman said: “We don’t have any meetings to announce at this time.”
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped to return to denuclearisation talks with North Korea in the coming days or weeks. Choe stressed that Washington needed to present a new approach or the talks could fall apart again.
“I want to believe that the US side would come out with an alternative based on a calculation method that serves both sides’ interests and is acceptable to us,” Choe said.
“If the US side toys with an old scenario that has nothing to do with the new method at working-level talks which would be held after difficulties, a deal between the two sides may come to an end.”
The end-of-September time frame would coincide with the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York, which Pompeo is due to attend.