N Korea rebuffs US offer of December talks

North Korea yesterday said it has been offered a fresh meeting with the United States, but is uninterested in more talks aimed at “appeasing us” ahead of a year-end deadline Pyongyang has set for Washington to show more flexibility in their negotiations.

Kim Myong Gil, the North’s nuclear negotiator, said in a report carried by state media that Stephen Biegun, his US counterpart who jointly led last month’s failed denuclearisation talks in Stockholm, had offered through a third country to meet again.

Kim and Biegun met last month in the Swedish capital for the first time since US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in June to re-open negotiations that have been stalled since a failed summit in Vietnam in February.

But the meeting fell apart, with Kim saying the US side failed to present a new approach.

North Korea has been seeking a lifting of punishing sanctions, but the United States has insisted Kim Jong Un must dismantle his nuclear weapons programme first.