Tillerson Open to Talks With North Korea

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson swung the door wide open to negotiations with North Korea, saying on Tuesday he is open to talks without preconditions as soon as Pyongyang signals it is ready.

“We’re ready to have the first meeting without precondition,” Tillerson said Tuesday at an event at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington. “Let’s just meet. And we can talk about the weather if you want. We can talk about whether it’s going to be a square table or a round table if that’s what you’re excited about. But can we at least sit down and see each other face to face,” he said.

Though he later appeared to suggest a condition to the offer of talks — calling for a freeze in North Korean missile tests — Tillerson’s remarks were one of the clearest diplomatic overtures to date from the Trump administration to Pyongyang. He said President Donald Trump, who has heightened fears of war with North Korea through his own verbal and Twitter volleys, “is pretty realistic” about the need to open a dialogue with Pyongyang.

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