DPRK likely to pursue talks, South says in rosy New Year forecast

South Korea predicted on Tuesday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) would look to open negotiations with the United States over its weapons programs next year and pursue at least some rapprochement with Seoul in an optimistic government outlook for 2018.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new, tougher sanctions on DPRK on Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, a move DPRK branded an economic blockade and act of war.

FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014.

“North Korea(DPRK) will seek negotiation with United States, while continuing to pursue its effort to be recognized as a de facto nuclear-possessing country,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a report, without offering any reasons for its conclusion.

Tensions have risen over DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs, which it pursues in defiance of years of U.N. Security Council resolutions, with bellicose rhetoric coming from both Pyongyang and the White House.

U.S. diplomats have made clear they are seeking a diplomatic solution but President Donald Trump has derided talks as useless and said Pyongyang must commit to giving up its nuclear weapons before any talks can begin.

In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, DPRK’s foreign ministry said the United States was terrified by its nuclear force and was getting “more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest-ever sanctions and pressure on our country”.

China and Russia both supported the latest U.N. sanctions, while on Monday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called for all countries to make constructive efforts to ease tension.

In its 2018 forecast, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it believed DPRK would eventually find ways to blunt the effects of the sanctions, which seek to limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.

“Countermeasures will be orchestrated to deal with the effects, including cuts in trade volume and foreign currency inflow, lack of supplies, and reduced production in each part of the economy,” the report said.

The latest round of sanctions was prompted by the Nov. 29 test of what DPRK said was an intercontinental ballistic missile that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

The Joongang Ilbo Daily newspaper, citing an unnamed South Korean government official, reported on Tuesday that DPRK could also be preparing to launch a satellite into space.

Experts have said such launches are likely aimed at further developing DPRK’s ballistic missile technology, and as such would be prohibited under U.N. resolutions.

The DPRK's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Monday saying that “peaceful space development is a legitimate right of a sovereign state”.

DPRK regularly threatens to destroy South Korea, the United States and Japan, and says its weapons are necessary to counter U.S. aggression.

The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, and regularly carries out military exercises with the South.

(REUTERS)