South Korea Claims North Korea Might Negotiate with US in 2018

"North Korea will seek negotiation with United States, while continuing to pursue its effort to be recognized as a de facto nuclear-possessing country,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a report, without providing an explanation as to how it reached the conclusion, World News reported.

Seoul made this prediction the same day it announced it was creating a special bureau to counter the North Korean nuclear threat.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had signaled that the US President Donald Trump administration was ready to negotiate without demanding North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs.

He announced that Washington is ready to begin exploratory talks with North Korea “without preconditions”, but only after a “period of quiet” without new nuclear or missile tests.

“We are ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk. We are ready to have the first meeting without preconditions. Let’s just meet,” Tillerson said.

“And then we can begin to lay out a roadmap... It’s not realistic to say we are only going to talk if you come to the table ready to give up your program. They have too much invested in it," he added.

However, the top diplomat then laid down one condition and stressed that there should be a “period of quiet” in which such preliminary talks could take place, as he portrayed it as a practical consideration.

“It’s going to be tough to talk if in the middle of our talks you decide to test another device,” he said, adding that “We need a period of quiet.”

Tillerson’s comments came as leader Kim Jong-un vowed to make North Korea the “world’s strongest nuclear power”.

But, North Korea snubbed Tillerson’s proposal for dialogue with Washington, stating that it will not give up its nuclear weapons programme and stressing that the final aim of any such initiative would be for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

A commentary piece published on North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Pyongyang was aware of Washington’s intention in proposing talks, and it was not an issue whether such initiative would come with or without preconditions.

Commenting on the fact, Rodong Sinmun underscored what the US seeks in proposing talks with or without preconditions is the nuclear dismantlement of the DPRK and there is nothing changed.

The DPRK has no interest in the dialogue intermittently put up by the US which is sneered by the international community for failing to mind its internal affairs, the commentary added, noting that as the DPRK has consistently insisted, the way to solve the issue between the DPRK and the US is for the US to drop at an early date its heinous hostile policy, which defines the DPRK as an enemy, and co-exist peacefully with the DPRK possessed of nukes.

Rodong Sinmun said the White House was pursuing a duplicitous policy in dealing with the country’s weapons program.

“Saying our nation is to be ‘utterly destroyed’ on the one hand, whilst saying ‘talk without precondition’ on the other hand is the Trump administration’s execution of the maximum pressure and interruption policy aimed at leading the North to the table for denuclearization,” the newspaper added.

The newspaper noted that as long as the US hostile policy and nuclear threat toward the DPRK are not fundamentally removed, the DPRK will never put its nukes and ballistic missiles on the table of negotiations nor flinch even an inch from the already chosen road of bolstering up the nuclear force. This is the fixed stand of the DPRK.

“The US is trying to shift responsibility for tensions on the Korean Peninsula to us with its dialogue offensive,” the Rodong Sinmun piece continued, as quoted by South Korea’s state news agency Yonhap.

“The move is seen as being intended to set the tone for manipulating new UN Security Council resolutions that may include a maritime blockade if we do not accept dialogue aimed at discussing the abandonment of our nuclear weapons,” it stressed.

North Korea has recently stressed that it will continue enhancing its nuclear defensive potential and the United States should put up with the idea that Pyongyang won’t give up these weapons.

"We will further consolidate our self-defensive nuclear deterrence aimed at eradicating the US nuclear threats and establishing the balance of force with it," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), adding that Pyongyang is developing its nuclear weapons to protect its sovereignty and people’s lives against "the blackmail of American imperialists."

"The US should not forget that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has rapidly emerged as a strategic state capable of posing a substantial nuclear threat to the US mainland. If the US wants to live in safety, it needs to stop its hostile policy against the DPRK. It should also give up dreams that we will abandon our nuclear weapons," it stressed.

The UN Security Council unanimously imposed a new round of sanctions on North Korea on Friday, following its latest ballistic missile test launch in late November. Pyongyang is already under an extremely harsh economic sanctions regime, but the latest round further slashed its refined petroleum product imports and banned all remaining major exports. The measure also demands the repatriation of all North Koreans working abroad within 24 months.

North Korea announced that Pyongyang considers the latest round of UN sanctions, which severely crippled its remaining imports and exports, to be an “act of war”.

Washington’s decades-long military presence in and around the Korean Peninsula has forced Pyongyang to develop its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Washington's aggression.

Pyongyang has fired a ballistic missile which splashed down in the Sea of Japan. North Korean leader personally oversaw the launch of the ICBM, which Pyongyang claims is a Hwasong-15, tipped with super-large heavy warhead and capable of hitting the whole mainland of the US.

Tensions have been building on the peninsula following a series of nuclear and missile tests by Pyongyang as well as threats of war and personal insults traded between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Trump and Kim have exchanged a series of personal insults, with Trump calling Kim a "little rocket man" and "mad man" and Pyongyang calling the US president a "mentally deranged dotard" and "old lunatic".

In 2017, North Korea carried out 20 ballistic missile launches, while the United States and its allies, for their part, are constantly conducting far-reaching sea drills in the region. The parties are exchanging tough rhetoric and admit that any scenario - including military action - is possible.

North Korea has been under a raft of crippling United Nations sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear tests as well as multiple rocket and missile launches.

Pyongyang has firmly defended its military program as a deterrent against the hostile policies of the US and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan.

US President has vowed to impose additional "major sanctions" against North Korea, while Washington has thousands of troops in the region, partially in South Korea and Japan, and routinely threatens the North with military action to stop its weapons program.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have held a series of high-profile war games near the Korean Peninsula over the past months, amid an ongoing standoff over Pyongyang's development of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, as both South Korea and Japan – despite tense relations amid disputes over history and territory – are allies and look to the US for their security.

North Korean officials have time and again accused their American counterparts of seeking regime change in their country.