President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone about the situation in North Korea, the White House said in the brief statement related to the call. According to the White House, the presidents talked about resolving the very dangerous situation in North Korea, The Hill reported.
“President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America’s strong economic performance in his annual press conference,” the White House stated.
Last month Pyongyang said that its latest missile test had the capability of reaching U.S. mainland and Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed that the test was the most advanced so far.
“It went higher, frankly, than any previous shot they’ve taken. The bottom line is it is a continued effort to build a ballistic missile threat that endangers world peace, regional peace and certainly the United States,” Mattis said at the time.
Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy for North Korea Joseph Yun expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s diplomatic offer of unconditional talks and added that the talks would be without preconditions and would serve Washington’s dual approach of pressure and engagement on Pyongyang over its nuclear program, Associated Press reports.
“I think what Secretary Tillerson spoke to was we want to have a dialogue with them. We are open to dialogue and we hope they will agree to have a dialogue. Let’s see how they respond … I am very hopeful that diplomacy has a long way to go before any next steps are considered,” said Yun.
In other North Korea-related news, Fox news reported that a key member of Kim Jong-un’s inner circle has recently vanished from public life. The person, named Hwang Pyong-so, is a vice marshal who held the most senior position in North Korea’s military. There are suspicions that he was executed by a North Korean death squad after allegations of bribery. Pyong-so hasn’t been seen in public since October 13.
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