With diplomacy between North and South Korea advancing positively, there is some expectation that talks are going at some point to focus on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Northern officials are trying to dissuade that idea.
Officials say that bilateral talks on the nuclear program would only hurt the progress they’ve made so far, and should not be an issue in the first place since the nuclear arms aren’t aimed at South Korea.
North Korean officials added that their nuclear arms are exclusively aimed at the United States, which makes sense given their long-standing insistence that the program is only meant to deter a US attack.
This makes negotiations on the nuclear program something for the US to tackle with North Korea, which is going to be difficult, since the US is holding out disarmament as a precondition for talks, and North Korea believes they can’t safely disarm without assurances the US isn’t going to attack.
