FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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North Korea Is Ready To Join Six-Party Talks, Kim Told Xi

April 5, 2018 (EIRNS)—According to Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review today, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un told Chinese President Xi Jinping that his country was willing to rejoin the “six-party talks” to discuss denuclearization, when the two met last month in China. Nikkei Asian Review cited unnamed “multiple sources in China and North Korea with knowledge of the matter.”

The six-party talks, involving China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea, and the U.S., began in 2003 with the goal of persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs. The dialogue was suspended in 2008, and in 2013—about a year after Kim Jong-un took power—Pyongyang declared the 1994 Agreed Framework was no more, reported Nikkei Asian Review.

The publication further reported that the official statement from the summit between Xi and Kim made no mention of the six-party talks. Efforts to revive the talks would probably begin only after the U.S.-North Korea summit next month, one of Nikkei’s sources said.