North Korea is willing to talk about getting rid of its nuclear weapons but only if its own safety can be guaranteed, South Korea says.<\/p>\n
The South says the subject was raised when its officials met with the North\u2019s leader, Kim Jong-un, in Pyongyang on Monday, during a rare visit.<\/p>\n
They said Kim is also open to US talks, and would pause weapons testing.<\/p>\n
In previous programmes to halt its nuclear ambitions, the North has failed to keep its promises.<\/p>\n
The leaders of North and South Korea have also agreed to meet at a summit next month, Seoul\u2019s envoy says.<\/p>\n
It will be the first such meeting for more than a decade and the first since Kim Jong-un took power in North Korea.<\/p>\n
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet on the heavily fortified border next month, at the truce village of Panmunjom. The two countries also agreed to open a hotline between the leaders.<\/p>\n
Throughout February\u2019s Winter Olympics in South Korea, the two countries struck a friendly tone, sending athletes to compete in a joint team and holding talks.<\/p>\n
But the US maintained that North Korean gestures of rapprochement would carry little weight without a commitment on nuclear weapons – particularly following last year\u2019s nuclear and missile tests carried out by the North.<\/p>\n
The South Korean delegation is expected to visit Washington later this week to brief US officials on their talks in the North.<\/p>\n
A statement from the South Korea president\u2019s office said: \u201cThe North showed willingness on denuclearisation in the Korean Peninsula. If military threats to the North Korea decrease and regime safety is guaranteed, the North showed that it has no reason to retain nukes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The North\u2019s KCNA news agency said Kim had \u201cwarmly welcomed\u201d the delegates and held an \u201copenhearted talk\u201d with them.<\/p>\n
This is a huge turnaround for North Korea\u2019s young leader, the BBC\u2019s Laura Bicker reported from Seoul.<\/p>\n
The United States has said it will only go into formal talks with North Korea if Pyongyang is ready to give up its nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
After the news from the South Korean officials was made public, President Donald Trump tweeted: \u201cThe World is watching and waiting!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMay be false hope, but the US is ready to go hard in either direction!\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, China\u2019s foreign ministry said it hopes the Koreas can continue with efforts to advance reconciliation, Reuters news agency reported.\u2014BBC<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" North Korea is willing to talk about getting rid of its nuclear weapons but only if its own safety can be guaranteed, South Korea says. The South says the subject was raised when its officials met with the North\u2019s leader, Kim Jong-un, in Pyongyang on Monday, during a rare visit. They said Kim is also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":61868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61869,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61861\/revisions\/61869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}