North Korean official says U.S. talks could happen 'if conditions are set'

(Image credit: Stringer/Getty Images)

Choi Son Hui, North Korea's foreign ministry director-general for North America, said in Beijing Saturday Pyongyang would be open to direct talks with the United States "if conditions are set" which satisfy the Kim Jong Un regime. The high-ranking official did not specify what those conditions might be; she is traveling back to North Korea from Norway, where she met informally with American academics and former diplomats.

President Trump has similarly suggested conditioned talks as a way to potentially move past the current stalemate in Washington-Pyongyang relations. "If it would be appropriate for me to meet with [Kim Jong Un], I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump said. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.