Negotiation is the only way the nuclear standoff between the United States and North Korea can be resolved, a senior U.S. official said Friday, urging Pyongyang to come to the dialogue table.
Jung Pak, assistant secretary of state and deputy special representative for North Korea, also called on North Korea's closest neighbors -- China and Russia -- to encourage Pyongyang to engage in dialogue.
The U.S. will, she said, "continue to evaluate our approach and take our steps, our next steps in lockstep with Korea and Japan, as well as other like-minded partners and to try to encourage Kim Jong-un to come to dialogue," Pak said, referring to the North Korean leader by his name.
"Negotiation and dialogue is really the only way that we are going to resolve this issue, and we hope that the DPRK opens up its border soon," she said in a seminar on the U.S.-South Korea alliance hosted by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
Pak insisted that the U.S., from President Joe Biden and down, has been consistent in offering to engage with North Korea without any preconditions.
"But I think at the end of the day only Kim Jong-un can decide to do what's best for his people, and it seems that he's decided that what's best for his people, and probably just for himself, maybe is the pursuit of nuclear weapons," she told the seminar.
The state department official stressed the need to fully implement United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on North Korea, insisting that the North had engaged in dialogue when all major players, including Beijing and Moscow, were all on the same page in terms of sanctions implementation.
"I would also argue that there has been greater international consensus on this issue, and that Beijing and Moscow can absolutely do more on sanctions implementation and to press the DPRK to come to the table," said Pak.
China and Russia, both friendly neighbors of North Korea and veto power-wielding permanent members of the UNSC, have blocked more than a dozen Security Council meetings held since last year to discuss ways to hold Pyongyang accountable for its military provocations.
North Korea staged an unprecedented 69 ballistic missile tests in 2022, a new record for the number of ballistic missiles launched in a single year.
"Over the course of 10 plus years that Kim Jong-un has been in power, his weapon systems have become much more sophisticated and diverse and dangerous," said Park.
"There used to be a much greater array of trading partners but also proliferation partners (of North Korea), and it's because of sanctions and their implementation that those numbers have shrunk quite a bit," she added.
Source: Yonhap News Agency