North Korea says U.S. nuclear talks set to resume

North Korea has announced that talks on its nuclear program will resume with the U.S. on Saturday, months after negotiations collapsed over what Pyongyang called unreasonable American demands.

“The DPRK and the U.S. agreed to have preliminary contact on Oct. 4 and hold working-level negotiations on Oct. 5.,” Choe Son Hui, the regime’s first vice-minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement, using the country’s full title of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The delegates of the DPRK side are ready to enter into the DPRK-U.S. working-level negotiations,” he said. “It is my expectation that the working-level negotiations would accelerate the positive development of the DPRK-U.S. relations.”

The statement, released by the official Korean Central News Agency, didn’t say where the meeting would take place nor who would attend.

The two sides haven’t met since February, and North Korea had indicated it would not meet unless a demand for unilateral disarmament was ruled out.

The U.S. State Department has yet to comment on the announcement or confirm the meeting.

Last month, North Korean diplomat Kim Myong Gil welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to fire his then-national security security adviser, John Bolton.

Kim was responding to Trump’s suggestion that “a new method” in the talks could be sought after Bolton’s departure.

source: nbcnews.com