Tillerson: US in direct contact with North Korea

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday that the U.S. is taking part in direct communications with North Korea as relations between the two countries appear to be deteriorating. 

“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang,” Tillerson said in comments reported by The New York Times. 

{mosads}Tillerson said the channels of communications do not run through China and that Washington has its own communication channels with Pyongyang. 

The secretary of state’s comments are the first time the Trump administration has acknowledged that it is engaging in backchannel communications with its adversary on the Korean peninsula. 

News of the communication comes as the two nations appear to be hurtling toward a confrontation, with President Trump threatening on the floor of the United Nations earlier this month to devastate North Korea and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un issuing a scathing attack on Trump, calling him a “mentally deranged dotard.”

North Korea’s foreign minister also threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean in response to Trump’s U.N. address. 

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said later Saturday that North Korea’s regime has shown no interest in negotiations related to its nuclear program.

“U.S. diplomats have several open channels in which we can communicate with officials within the North Korean regime,” Nauert said Saturday.

“Despite assurances that the United States is not interested in promoting the collapse of the current regime, pursuing regime change, accelerating reunification of the peninsula or mobilizing forces north of the DMZ, North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization,” she added.

Tension between the U.S. and North Korea was stoked this summer after Pyongyang tested a series of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), defying the international community. 

Updated 7:35 p.m.