Politics

State Dept. Says The US And North Korea Will Continue Talks “Within The Next Week’

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The United States and North Korea will hold talks “within the next week” after months of silence, the State Department announced Tuesday.

“I can confirm that U.S. and DPRK officials plan to meet within the next week. I do not have further details to share on the meeting,” State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

North Korea’s state news agency KCNA said officials agreed to working-level talks that will be held on Oct. 5, Reuters reported Tuesday.

“The delegates of the DPRK side are ready to enter into the DPRK-U.S. working-level negotiations,” Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui was quoted saying by KCNA, according to Reuters.

Discussions addressing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs between the two countries were put on pause since President Donald Trump’s second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s meeting in Vietnam in February, which concluded without any kind of agreement, according to Reuters.

The president said during the February meeting that North Korea has “tremendous economic potential” if it agrees to denuclearize.

Trump did, however, become the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korean territory in June, where he had a one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong Un, whom Trump said had unrealistic expectations about a trade deal.

“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that. They were willing to de-nuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that,” Trump said after the summit, adding, “Sometimes you have to walk.”