The remarks reflected North Korea’s longstanding insistence that it would engage Washington in dialogue only of it was treated as a nuclear power.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Saturday that it would be willing to begin a dialogue with the United States on “issues of mutual concern” but that it would not accept any preconditions for starting such talks.
The statement came days after President Trump said on Monday that his administration could enter talks with North Korea, but “only under the right conditions.” That meant North Korea must first commit to denuclearization, United States officials have said.
North Korea, however, on Saturday said that talks needed to be based on “an equal footing between states.”
“The dialogue we desire is the one designed to discuss and resolve the issues of mutual concern on an equal footing between states,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
