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| A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday. Yonhap |
The United States is open to meet with North Korea without preconditions on any topic including discussion on steps that both sides could take with the aim of improving the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, a state department spokesperson said Monday, after North Korea dismissed U.S. overtures for dialogue as a "trick."
The spokesperson also insisted that diplomacy is the "only viable path forward."
"When we say "without preconditions," it means that we would welcome dialogue on any of a wide range of topics of mutual concern," the spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency in an email.
"This could include discussion of practical steps both sides could take to address the security situation in the region," the state department official added, asking not to be identified.
The remark comes in response to a statement issued Monday by Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in which she argued that the U.S. offer to meet without any preconditions is only a "trick."
"In the final analysis, we are well aware that what the U.S. can offer to the DPRK in the dialogue is all changeable and reversible. However, what the U.S. wants from the DPRK is the "complete and irreversible denuclearization"," said the statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
"The U.S. should know that its bolstered extended deterrence system and excessively extended military alliance system, a threatening entity, will only make the DPRK go farther away from the negotiating table desired by it," Kim added, according to the released statement.
The statement came after North Korea test fired a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Wednesday, which, according to the state department, marked the country's 12th ICBM launch since the start of last year. (Yonhap)
