Trump reaches out to North Korea in bid to resume nuclear talks

The Trump administration has reached out to North Korea in hopes of resuming denuclearization talks, a report said.

National security adviser Robert O’Brien told Axios that the administration “reached out to the North Koreans and let them know that we would like to continue the negotiations in Stockholm that were last undertaken in early October.”

“We’ve been letting them know, through various channels, that we would like to get those [negotiations] back on track and to implement Chairman Kim’s commitment to denuclearization,” O’Brien told the outlet.

Nuclear talks between the US and North Korea have stalled since a February 2019 meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam between Trump and Kim Jong Un.

At the summit in the Vietnamese capital ​— Trump and Kim’s second — the US attempted to get North Korea to agree to denuclearize. Pyongyang argued for relief from sanctions.

Since that summit, North Korea has resumed test-firing missiles.

In December, North Korea warned of sending the US a “Christmas gift,” interpreted by some as a possible long-range missile test.

The “gift” was never delivered and President Trump even made light of the threat, joking that the present from North Korea could be a “beautiful vase.”

O’Brien told Axios that it was “an encouraging sign” that North Korea never sent the gift.

“All we know is we were told we were going to get a Christmas gift and the Christmas gift didn’t come,” he said.

“And so I think that was an encouraging sign. But, again, that doesn’t mean we won’t see some sort of test in the future.”