Donald Trump open to talks with North Korea while keeping up ‘maximum pressure’ campaign
US president told South Korea’s Moon Jae-in that talks with Pyongyang could take place ‘at the appropriate time, under the right circumstances’
US President Donald Trump told his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in in a phone call that the US would be open to talks with North Korea while continuing to maintain a “maximum pressure” campaign against Pyongyang aimed at halting its nuclear and missile programmes.
During the call on Wednesday, Moon briefed Trump on the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting between North and South Korea, the first such inter-Korean dialogue in more than two years, and thanked Trump for his “influential leadership” in making the talks possible, the White House said in a press release issued after the exchange.
The White House said in the release that the two presidents had agreed to continue to put maximum pressure on the North Korean regime and its enablers and that Trump had expressed his openness to holding talks between Washington and Pyongyang “at the appropriate time, under the right circumstances”.
Trump also told Moon that US Vice-President Mike Pence would lead the American delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, according to the release.
