South Korea says, it wanted to reopen communications with North Korea. Spokesman for the South Korea’s Unification Ministry, Lee Duk-haeng today said, it is their most basic stance.
He said, communications were severed by the North last year, in the wake of new sanctions following North Korea’s last nuclear test and Pyongyang’s decision to shut down a joint industrial zone operated inside the North. South Korea’s new President, Moon Jae-in, after taking office, said that he wants to pursue dialogue as well as pressure to stop the North’s weapons programs.
Meanwhile, the United States yesterday said, it believed, it could persuade China to impose new UN sanctions on North Korea and warned that Washington would also target and call out countries supporting Pyongyang.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also made clear that Washington would only talk to North Korea once it halted its nuclear program.
