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US President Donald Trump talks to reporters in front of the White House before leaving for a campaign rally in North Carolina on Sept. 9. (AFP/Yonhap News)
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“I always say having meetings is a good thing,” US president says
US President Donald Trump responded on Sept. 9 to North Korea’s announcement of plans to hold working-level negotiations with the US around late September by saying, “Having meetings is a good thing.” “We’ll see what happens,” he added. While leaving the White House that day for an election campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump was asked by reporters about Pyongyang’s proposal to hold working-level talks. “I saw a statement was just put out having to do with North Korea. And that will be interesting,” he replied. “In the meantime, we have our hostages back. We're getting the remains of our great heroes [from the Korean War] back. And we have had no nuclear testing for a long time,” he continued. When asked whether he was disappointed with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump said, “I have a very good relationship with Chairman Kim.” “We'll see what happens. I always say having meetings is a good thing, not a bad thing,” he continued. Trump’s remarks were a favorable response to a statement a few hours earlier by North Korean First Vice Minister Choe Son-hui, who said that North Korea was willing to “sit with the US side for comprehensive discussions of the issues we have so far taken up at the time and place to be agreed late in September.” The likelihood of North Korea-US working-level talks taking place during September now appears greater. When asked by the press for a position on Choe’s statement, an official with the office of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said, “We don’t have any meetings to announce at this time.” In a statement published on the evening of Sept. 9, Choe wrote, “I gave heed to the recent repeated remarks of high-ranking US officials leading the negotiations with the DPRK that they are ready for the DPRK-US working negotiation.” “I believe that the US side will come out with a proposal geared to the interests of the DPRK and the US and based on the calculation method acceptable to us,” she continued. Expressing her hopes to hold working-level talks with the US in late September, Choe also cautioned, “If the US side fingers again the worn-out scenario which has nothing to do with the new calculation method at the DPRK-US working negotiation to be held with so much effort, the DPRK-US dealings may come to an end.” While Kim and Trump previously agreed to hold working-level negotiations in the future when they met at Panmunjom on June 30, the talks have yet to come to pass. North Korea conducted six test launches of short-range missiles in August while voicing disgruntlement over combined South Korea-US military exercises, while Trump said that Kim had sent a personal letter to him last month communicating his hope to resume dialogue once the South Korea-US exercises were over. Choe’s statement came three days after Stephen Biegun, the US State Department special representative for North Korea, sent a positive message regarding dialogue on Sept. 6, while hinting at the possibility of a strategic reconsideration of the US Forces Korea issue. “We are prepared to engage as soon as we hear from [North Korea],” Biegun said at the time. Senior figures in the Trump administration have also unanimously called on Pyongyang to resume dialogue, with Trump himself stressing on Sept. 4 that the US was “not looking for regime change” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declaring on Sept. 6 that “every nation has the sovereign right to defend itself.” By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
