North Korea ‘willing’ to talk to US after earlier slamming Donald Trump’s sanctions

NORTH Korea is “very willing” to hold talks with the United States, its delegation to the Winter Olympics closing ceremony said overnight, according to Seoul’s presidential Blue House.

In a meeting with the South’s President Moon Jae-in, the North’s delegation “agreed that inter-Korea talks and North-US relations should improve together”, the Blue House said in a statement.

Pyongyang has frequently said it is willing to talk without preconditions, but Washington says it must first take concrete steps towards denuclearisation.

It comes as the rogue nation earlier slammed the latest US measures against it as an “act of war”, after US President Donald Trump announced the “heaviest sanctions ever” on the nuclear-armed regime.

The measures, which Washington says are aimed at forcing Pyongyang to roll back its banned nuclear and weapons programs, target more than 50 North Korea-linked shipping companies, vessels and trade businesses.

“As we have stated on numerous occasions, we will consider any type of blockade an act of war against us, and if US has indeed the guts to confront us in ‘rough’ manner, we will not necessarily take the trouble to stop it,” said a foreign ministry spokesman quoted by the official KCNA news agency.

It also vowed a retaliation if the US “really has the nerves” to confront the North in a “rough” manner.

Mr Trump warned on Friday that, if the latest sanctions don’t work, the US would “go to phase two” that “may be a very rough thing”, without elaborating.

In response, the North also vowed to “subdue the US in our own way” if provoked, saying “Trump is trying to change us with such sanctions and hostile remarks, which shows his ignorance about us”.

“We already have our own nuclear weapon — a treasured sword of justice to protect us from such threats from the US,” the foreign ministry said.

The comment came hours before the North’s senior delegation led by Kim Yong Chol, a black-listed military general, attended the closing ceremony of the South’s Winter Olympics, which was also be attended by Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

The visit by Kim, accused of masterminding past attacks on the South, has sparked angry protests from conservatives.

Moon met Kim for about an hour in PyeongChang, the presidential office said without elaborating.

The nuclear-armed North has gone on a charm offensive over the Games, sending athletes, cheerleaders and performers and with leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong attending the opening ceremony.

Analysts say the North’s overtures to the South are intended to loosen sanctions imposed over its banned nuclear and missile programs, and an attempt to weaken the alliance between Seoul and Washington.

OVERNIGHT PROTEST

The US Treasury black-listed 28 ships, 27 companies and one person, imposing an asset freeze and barring US citizens from dealing with them, in what Mr Trump described as the “heaviest sanctions ever” levied on Pyongyang.

Mr Trump also warned that, if the latest sanctions do not work, the US may “go to phase two” that “may be a very rough thing”.

The UN Security Council has already banned North Korean exports of coal — a key foreign exchange earner — iron ore, seafood and textiles, and restricted its oil imports.

Washington is now seeking to have the United Nations ban vessels from ports worldwide and blacklist shipping businesses for helping the North circumvent sanctions.

Kim Yong Chol’s nomination as leader of the visiting delegation is controversial in the South, where he is widely blamed for attacks including the torpedoing of Seoul’s Cheonan warship in 2010 with the loss of 46 lives. Pyongyang denies responsibility.

Conservative politicians staged an overnight protest near the border with the North, joined by hundreds of other activists.

They waved banners including “Arrest Kim Yong Chol!” and “Kim Yong Chol should kneel in front of the victims’ families and apologise!” Kim is black-listed under Seoul’s unilateral sanctions against the North, meaning he is subject to an assets freeze.

‘CRAZY REMARKS’

Officials from both Seoul and Washington say there will be no meeting between Kim Yong Chol and Ivanka Trump — who is travelling with Korea specialists from the US administration and White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.

Kim Yo Jong’s trip at the start of the Games — the first visit to the South by a member of the North’s ruling dynasty since the Korean War ended in 1953 — made global headlines.

But Mr Pence told an audience of thousands at the Conservative Political Action Conference: “The sister of Kim Jong Un is a central pillar of the most tyrannical and oppressive regime on the planet, an evil family clique that brutalises, subjugates, starves and imprisons its 25 million people.”

Pyongyang denounced his comments Sunday, with KCNA carrying a statement from the North’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee saying Pence would discover “what quagmire his crazy remarks threw the US and himself into”.

Trump, it said, should know that the North would “have no dealings with those viciously slandering the dignity of our supreme leadership and government”.

“We will never have face-to-face talks with them even after 100 years or 200 years.”