A senior North Korean diplomat said on Saturday Pyongyang would hold talks with Washington if conditions were right, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
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Choe Son-hui, director-general and North America bureau chief of North Korea's foreign ministry, told reporters in Beijing that her country "will hold dialogue under right conditions" with the U.S. administration, Yohap reported.
When asked whether Pyongyang is preparing to hold dialogue with South Korea’s new government of President Moon Jae-in, Che replied, "We will observe the situation."
Choe was travelling home from Norway after the so called “Track Two” talks with a group of U.S. experts on security affairs earlier this week, according to the Japan Times.
The experts included Thomas Pickering, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Einhorn, former U.S. State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, and Suzanne DiMaggio, director and senior fellow of the U.S. think tank New America.
DiMaggio is known as a specialist in the Obama administration's nuclear talks with Iran. When asked what she discussed with Pickering, Choe said, "I met with Pickering and I will discuss it when given the opportunity in the future."
U.S. officials have said the meeting has nothing to do with the U.S. government, but the meeting came amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
U.S. President Donald Trump warned in an interview with Reuters last month that a "major, major conflict" with the North was possible, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute.
Trump later said he would be "honored" to meet the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, under the right conditions. But Trump didn’t specify what preconditions would need to be met before such meeting could happen.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated in an interview with NPR that Pyongyang needs to give up its nuclear weapons first.
“We do not seek a collapse of the regime. We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula. We seek a denuclearized Korean peninsula,” Tillerson said.
South Korea's new liberal President Moon was sworn in on Wednesday and he favors dialogue with North Korea. Moon has said he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if a summit could help ease tensions.
"The resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue must be comprehensive and sequential, with pressure and sanctions used in parallel with negotiations," Moon said when speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping.