South Korea turns to Trump after North rebuffs 'reconciliatory' moves

ANKARA/ISTANBUL

South Korea has sought help from US President Donald Trump to revive the long-stalled talks with North Korea as Pyongyang rebuffed Seoul's reconciliatory moves.

Seoul has been closely coordinating with Washington regarding a potential revival of dialogue with Pyongyang, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told reporters, while sharing details of his meetings held early this month with US officials in Washington.

However, North Korea on Thursday rejected Seoul's reconciliatory moves, including dismantling propaganda loudspeakers along the border.

"The rulers of Seoul have some object(ive) in building up the public opinion while embellishing their new policy toward" North Korea, said Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Soon after his inauguration in June, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung rushed to take steps to "restore" trust and dialogue with Pyongyang, upending the hardline policy of his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.

Seoul has also halted the flying of anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea and also postponed parts of joint drills with the US to a later date.

However, it does not seem to have influenced Pyongyang. "Such a trick is nothing but a 'pipedream' and it does not arouse our interest at all," said Kim in a statement carried by the North Korean state media.

She denied the South Korean military's claim that Pyongyang had also removed some propaganda loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border.

"As to the joint military drills, it is pretending hard to make proactive efforts for detente, talking about adjustment and postponement. But it does not deserve praise and will prove futile," Kim added.

The US and South Korean militaries will conduct the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise on Aug. 18-28, but nearly half of its 40 planned exercises will be delayed to next month, a move seen as one of the reconciliatory steps.

Despite Pyongyang's fresh rejection, Seoul said it will consistently pursue the normalization of ties with North Korea.

"The government will consistently pursue normalization and stabilization of ties between South and North Korea in a way that can become mutually beneficial," an official at the Unification Ministry said.

On ties with the US, the North leader's sister warned if Washington "persists with the outdated way of thinking, the meeting between the top leaders will remain only the 'hope' of the US side."

Pyongyang has earlier said that for any summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the US will have to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

"We are not at all interested in talks that are obsessed with the irreversible past, and there is no more need to explain the reason," she stressed.

South Korea's top diplomat Cho acknowledged that reviving talks with Pyongyang will take time.

"North Korea would want to talk with the US as a nuclear-armed state, but the US position is that North cannot have nuclear weapons. So it's going to take a lot of back-and-forth," Cho said.

* Writing by Aamir Latif and Riyaz ul Khaliq.