FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Beijing, Moscow, and Trump Respond to Seoul Appeal for U.S.-North Korea Dialogue
Feb. 27, 2018 (EIRNS)—Within hours of the South Korean presidential administration’s reporting that North Korea is open to dialogue with the U.S., President Donald Trump and the Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministries responded with statements that all indicate forward motion on diplomacy coming out of the just-concluded Winter Olympics. President Trump, during a public meeting with state governors yesterday, remarked that North Korea wants to talk. “And we want to talk also, only under the right conditions,” he said. He continued:
“I think that [China’s] President Xi is unique. He’s helping us with North Korea. And Russia is behaving badly because Russia is sending in what China is taking out. So China is doing pretty good numbers, but Russia now sending a lot of stuff. But I think they want to see it come to an end also, I think everybody does.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang, during his regular briefing today, remarked that there has been some “amelioration” of the situation on the Korean Peninsula in the recent period, an amelioration that China hopes will be continued. “As we said before, we hope that the D.P.R.K.-R.O.K. dialogue could be expanded to a direct one between the U.S. and the D.P.R.K.,” Lu said.
“After all, the core of the Korean Peninsula issue is about security, and the U.S. and the D.P.R.K. hold the key to that. We have been closely following the recent interactions between the U.S. and the D.P.R.K. over possible talks. Such talks are not only what China hopes to see, but also the shared aspiration of the international community. We hope such talks can be held at an early date and the two sides will make joint effort to enable effective dialogues that produce beneficial results.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement yesterday noting the appeal of South Korean President Moon Jae-in for U.S.-North Korean dialogue and for lowering the threshold at which a dialogue could take place.
“We support this appeal, which dovetails with the international community’s efforts to launch a direct North Korea-U.S. dialogue as the key component of a comprehensive settlement of problems on the Korean Peninsula,” t
he ministry said.
