[Heather Nauert, a State Department spokeswoman, said later in the day that despite the U.S. efforts, “North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization.”]
By Emily Rauhala
 |
|
During
his visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 30, Secretary of State
Rex
Tillerson said that the U.S. has multiple direct channels of communication
with
North Korea. (Reuters)
|
BEIJING — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
said the United States is in direct contact with North Korea and is looking
into whether Kim Jong Un is open to talks.
The comment, made during a brief trip to
China, was the first time the Trump administration acknowledged direct
communication with Pyongyang.
“We are probing, so stay tuned,” he said.
“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have
lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a
blackout. We have a couple, three, channels open to Pyongyang; we can talk to
them; we do talk to them,” he said.
Heather Nauert, a State Department
spokeswoman, said later in the day that despite the U.S. efforts, “North Korean
officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for
talks regarding denuclearization.”
Tillerson’s remarks came after a day of
meetings with top Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping — meetings
that saw both sides strike a careful, conciliatory tone.
The secretary of state’s day-long visit comes
amid an escalating standoff over how to thwart Kim’s nuclear weapons program.
In recent weeks, the conflict has devolved to
an exchange of insults and threats between the U.S. president and the North
Korean dictator, prompting Chinese calls for restraint.
[Trump escalates a war of words with North
Korea]
Tillerson seems to have gotten that message.
In brief statements ahead of his meetings with Chinese leaders, the secretary
of state did not so much as mention North Korea and nor, for that matter, did
the Chinese.
Instead, both sides tried to keep the focus
on President Trump’s upcoming Asia visit, which Xi promised would be a
“special, wonderful, and successful” event.
Yet all the talk of careful planning and
close cooperation could not mask the less-than-ideal circumstances.
Tillerson landed in Beijing on Saturday
morning after a long delay due to a problem with his plane, arriving on the eve
of the week-long Mid-Autumn Festival.
In addition to the holiday, his hosts had much
on their minds. For months now, Beijing has been consumed with preparations for
twice-a-decade political meetings to be held in October. The focus on the 19th
National Congress, as the meetings are called, means the Chinese leadership’s
interest in off-script moves from either Trump or Kim is lower than ever — and
it already started pretty low.
Though arriving late, Tillerson did the
Chinese the favor of staying on message, saying nothing publicly that could
embarrass them or signal new, unexpected moves.
This is keeping with his style so far. On his
first visit, in March, he surprised many China watchers by using some of
Beijing’s preferred talking points — “mutual respect and win-win cooperation” —
in public comments.
The question, now, is how Trump or Kim will
chime in.
Earlier in September, North Korea tested a
nuclear bomb just hours before Xi delivered a keynote speech, stealing his
spotlight. Then as China’s state news media struggled to keep the focus on Xi,
Trump weighed in, tweeting that North Korea has become a “great threat and
embarrassment to China.”
Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese
Foreign Ministry, later called Trump’s tweet “unacceptable.”
Tillerson, perhaps trying to avoid that kind
of scolding, ended his trip with a call for calm.
“I think the most immediate action that we
need is to calm things down,” he said. “They’re a little overheated right now.
And I think we need to calm them down first.”
Read more
