N Korea: Talks chance with US ‘narrowing’

The possibility of talks between nuclear-armed North Korea and Washington is “narrowing”, Pyongyang said yesterday. Last month the North walked away from working-level nuclear talks with the US in Sweden, saying it was disappointed at the lack of “new and creative” solutions offered by Washington. On Friday the State Department in an annual report reaffirmed the North’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, reiterating that it was “implicated in assassinations on foreign soil”.