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UN official warns of conflict with N Korea

World Materials 15 December 2017 14:09 (UTC +04:00)
A UN official who just returned from Pyongyang, where he spent several days speaking with North Korean officials, has said he is "really worried about an accidental move toward conflict."
UN official warns of conflict with N Korea

A UN official who just returned from Pyongyang, where he spent several days speaking with North Korean officials, has said he is "really worried about an accidental move toward conflict.", CNN reports.

Jeffrey Feltman, an American who is the United Nations undersecretary-general for political affairs, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that he is concerned about a "lack of communication" and the "high risk of some kind of miscalculation."

Tensions between North Korea and the United States have risen markedly in the past year. Pyongyang's weapons programs have passed critical thresholds this year, to the point where many in Washington consider North Korea's nuclear capability an imminent threat.

Feltman is the highest-level UN official to visit Pyongyang since 2011. He spent more than 15 hours speaking with North Korean officials, he said, including the foreign minister. Feltman has previously served as an American assistant secretary of state.

"The lack of trust in their mind meant that they had to rely on deterrence -- meaning military deterrence -- rather than on diplomatic dialogue in the short term."

In the long-term, he said they understood the need for diplomacy.

"I think that at least in terms of long-term aspirations, they understand that there has to be peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, that there has to be some kind of arrangement that's based on a diplomatic solution."

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he was open to sitting down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but since his election his tone has been more confrontational.

Previous attempts to find a diplomatic solution to stymie North Korea's nuclear aspirations have failed. Policy makers in Washington have appeared reticent to start a new round of negotiations until Kim's regime makes some sort of effort to show it will negotiate in good faith, and not cheat on its agreements. What that signal is, and whether there are any preconditions that must be met before talks begin, has been the subject of open debate. The White House and the State Department appear to be at odds over the issue.

A North Korean official, however, told CNN in October that "before we can engage in diplomacy with the Trump administration, we want to send a clear message that the DPRK has a reliable defensive and offensive capability to counter any aggression from the United States."

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