The U. S. secretary of state acknowledged three ongoing direct channels between the United States and North Korea.
U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in China this weekend for a visit to lay the groundwork for U. S. President Donald Trump’s upcoming state visit to Beijing in November.
Speaking to reporters before meetings with senior Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, Tillerson acknowledged that the United States had three separate direct and open channels of communication with North Korea.
“We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang. We can talk to them, we do talk to them,” Tillerson told reporters in Beijing, according to a pool report.
“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout,” Tillerson added.
He clarified that these were direct channels that were not being mediated by any way by China, North Korea’s most important trading partner and benefactor.
Tillerson did not offer any assessment of if these channels were demonstrating results.
“The whole situation is a bit overheated right now,” he said. “I think everyone would like for it to calm down. I think if North Korea would stop firing all the missiles, that would calm down things a lot.”
North Korea has continued to fire ballistic missiles throughout the year, introducing more advanced missiles and more provocative tests as the year has gone on.
