N. Korea asks US to contact its officials directly instead of through 3rd party

Kim Myong-gil, roving ambassador of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, talks to reporters during a layover in Beijing on Oct. 7 after North Korea’s working-level talks with the US in Stockholm.

Remark confirms Washington and Pyongyang are negotiating behind closed doors

Kim Myong-gil, roving ambassador of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, talks to reporters during a layover in Beijing on Oct. 7 after North Korea’s working-level talks with the US in Stockholm.

“If the negotiated solution of issues is possible, we are ready to meet with the US at any place and any time,” said Kim Myong-gil, roving ambassador of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry and chief envoy to the working-level talks, on Nov. 14.

This is the first time that North Korea has directly expressed its willingness to sit down with the US at any time or place since the two countries failed to reach an agreement in their working-level talks in Stockholm in early October. The remarks confirm that deliberations between the two sides are continuing behind closed doors.

“[Stephen] Biegun, special representative of the US Department of State for North Korea policy, sent us through a third country a message hoping that the DPRK [North Korea] and the US would meet again within December for negotiations,” Kim said in the statement, which was released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“I cannot understand why he spreads the so-called idea of DPRK-US relations through the third party, not thinking of candidly making direct contact with me, his dialogue partner, if he has any suggestions or any idea [about] the DPRK-US dialogue,” Kim said.

“His behavior only amplifies doubts about the US,” Kim said. “If the US side has found a solution to be presented to us, it can just explain it to us directly.”

“But I intuitively feel that the US is not ready to give a satisfactory answer to us and its proposal for dialogue with us is a trick to earn time through the orchestration of a DPRK-US meeting. Explicitly speaking once again, I am not interested in such a meeting,” the ambassador emphasized.

In short, Kim asked Biegun to get directly in touch with Kim to propose any solution he may devise.

Kim had the following to say about that solution: “If the US, failing to put forth a basic solution for lifting the anti-DPRK hostile policy [. . .], thinks that it can lead us to negotiations with [an end-of-war] declaration, which [could be rendered meaningless at] any moment with [a] change of situation, and with other matters of secondary importance like the establishment of a liaison office, there is no possibility of the settlement of the issues.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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