MANILA: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday ruled out a quick return to dialogue with North Korea, as he said new UN sanctions showed the world had run out of patience with Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons ambitions.
Speaking to reporters at a security forum in the Philippine capital, Tillerson said Washington would only consider talks if Pyongyang halted its ballistic missile programme – something the North has insisted it has no intention of doing.
“The best signal that North Korea could send that they’re prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches,†Tillerson said.
He nevertheless held out the prospect of US envoys at some point sitting down with Pyongyang’s isolated regime and avoiding the escalating threat of war. Tillerson’s remarks followed a rare exchange on Sunday between the foreign ministers of the two Koreas on the sidelines of the Manila forum, during which the North’s Ri Yong-Ho showed no signs his nation had been intimidated by the latest rounds of sanctions.
In an effort to halt North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s drive to become a nuclear power, the UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously approved a US-drafted sanctions package against his nation that could cost it $1 billion a year.The sanctions were in response to the North conducting two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month that Kim boasted showed he could strike any part of the United States.
US President Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-In, spoke on the phone on Sunday and agreed the North “poses a grave and growing direct threat†to most countries around the world, according to a White House statement. Trump later took to social media to hail the vote, thanking Russia and China in a Twitter post for backing the sanctions that either could have halted with their UN veto.
