Trump hails North Korea talks while vowing US 'is ready to go hard in either direction!'

We will see what happens, says the President

Donald Trump has welcomed reports North Korea is willing to enter talks about getting rid of its nuclear weapons programme, but warned the US was ready “to go hard in either direction”.

South Korean diplomats returning from a two-day visit to the North to talk about regional and strategic issues, said the two countries will next month hold their first summit in more than a decade at the border village of Panmunjom.

Chung Eui-yong, head of the South Korean delegation, which met for the first time with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, said the North had also indicated it was ready to eradicate nuclear weapons from the region if its security could be guaranteed. There was there was no immediate independent confirmation of this from Pyongyang.

“North Korea made clear its willingness to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and the fact there is no reason for it to have a nuclear programme if military threats against the North are resolved and its regime is secure,” Mr Chung said, according to Reuters.

Mr Trump initially responded to the news by tweeting: “We will see what happens!”

“Possible progress being made in talks with North Korea. For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned,” he said later.

“The World is watching and waiting! May be false hope, but the US is ready to go hard in either direction!”

The news from the Korean peninsula follows months of rising tensions, and genuine fears of possible conflict, as the North has accelerated its weapons programme – testing nuclear payloads and developing an intercontinental missile that most experts believe could probably reach the US mainland.

While US Defence Secretary and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have stressed the US would prefer a diplomatic solution to the standoff, Mr Trump has continued to taunt and insult the North Korean leader. In a speech to the UN General Assembly he threatened to “totally destroy” the North if it continued to be a regional security threat.

Experts said much of the credit for the possible breakthrough should go to South Korean leader Moon Jae-in, who has made improving relations with the North one of his priorities since coming to office in May 2017.

He was also behind the move at the recent Winter Olympics to have athletes from the two countries perform together in several events and appear together at the opening ceremony of the games in PyeongChang.

Jenny Town, Assistant Director of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said the news from North Korea presented a window of opportunity for the Trump administration. At the same time, she said, Washington ought not not to read too much into it as the two sides had been here before, only for talks to break down.

“North Korea is not suddenly going to give up its nuclear weapons. That is not going to be the first thing they do,” she said.

While crediting Mr Moon for agreeing to talks without the sort of preconditions the US had always insisted on, she said it should now become clear precisely that Mr Trump’s policy for dealing with North Korea was.

“How they respond now will be a test of their policy and its coherence,” she told The Independent.

Sheila Smith, an expert on North East Asia and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said she believed the “maximum pressure” policy of tighter sanctions against the North, had pushed it to respond. She said China deserved credit for enforcing those sanctions to an extent it had not previously done so.

She also said several other countries, none of them considered global strategic players, may have had an important impact when they expelled North Korean diplomats following last September’s nuclear test. Those counties included Kuwait, Spain, Egypt and Peru.

Asked if Kim Jong-un took Mr Trump’s threats seriously, she said: “We have a hard time knowing what motivates Kim Kong Un, but we do know that Pyongyang took them seriously.”

In Seoul, Mr Chung, who met with the North’s leader, said he had been told the North would not carry out nuclear or missile tests while talks with the international community were under way. North Korea has not carried out any such tests since November last year.

“The North also said it can have frank talks with the United States on denuclearisation and the normalisation of ties between North Korea and the United States,” he said.

North Korea has regularly vowed never to give up its nuclear programme, which it sees as an essential deterrent and “treasured sword” against US plans for invasion. The United States, which stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the Korean War, denies any such plans.

The last inter-Korean summit was in 2007 when late former president Roh Moo-hyun was in office.