BEIJING -- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged Saturday that the United States is maintaining direct channels of communications with North Korea even as tensions rise over the North's nuclear and missile programs and the countries' leaders spar through name-calling.
Tillerson said the U.S. was probing North Korea's willingness to talk, and called for a calming of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, adding it was incumbent on the North to halt the missile launches.
"We have lines of communication to Pyongyang. We're not in a dark situation, a blackout," Tillerson told reporters during a visit to China. "We have a couple ... three channels open to Pyongyang. We can talk to them, we do talk to them."
When asked whether those channels ran through China, he shook his head.
"Directly," he said. "We have our own channels."
No elaboration about those channels or the substance of any discussions came from Tillerson, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top officials in Beijing.
While Tillerson affirmed that the U.S. would not recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, he also said President Donald Trump's administration had no intention of trying to topple North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "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 [demilitarized zone], North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization," U.S. State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said in a statement.
The Korean Peninsula remains technically in a state of war, and the demilitarized zone divides North and South Korea.
Since Trump took office, the U.S. has restored a diplomatic back-channel between the State Department and North Korea's mission at the United Nations. That's traditionally been a way for the two sides to communicate because they lack formal diplomatic ties.
The main aim of the initial contacts was to seek the freedom of several American citizens imprisoned in North Korea, although U.S. officials have said there were broader discussions about U.S.-North Korean relations. Those contacts, however, have failed to reduce the deep mistrust between the adversaries and it's unclear to what extent they have endured the current spike in tensions.
North Korea has in recent months tested long-range missiles that potentially could reach the U.S., and on Sept. 3 conducted its largest nuclear test explosion to date. The standoff has entered a new, more dangerous phase since then as Kim and Trump have exchanged personal insults and threats of war.
"I think the most immediate action that we need is to calm things down," Tillerson said. "They're a little overheated right now. And I think we need to calm them down first." He did not directly address the impact of Trump's own rhetoric.
"Obviously it would help if North Korea would stop firing off missiles. That would calm things down a lot," Tillerson said.
Trump gave a combative speech recently at the U.N. General Assembly in which he mocked Kim as "rocket man" on a "suicide mission." Trump said that if "forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea." Kim responded by saying he would "tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said that, if elected, he would sit down and negotiate directly with Kim, perhaps over a hamburger. He seemed confident that his deal-making skills could extend to nuclear disarmament, but at times talked about getting other powers -- chiefly China and Iran -- to deal with North Korea for him, because they would have more leverage.
But Tillerson seemed to suggest that the urgency of the problem, with Kim "launching 84 missiles" in his brief few years as the country's leader, and efforts to develop a hydrogen bomb, called for direct talks. And while he said the ultimate goal of those talks had to be denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula -- something the two Koreas agreed on in 1992 -- progress toward that goal would be "incremental."
His comments marked the first sign that the Trump administration has been trying its own version of what the Obama administration did with Iran: using a series of back-channel, largely secret communications that, after years of negotiation, resulted in a nuclear accord.
But Tillerson was quick to distinguish the very different circumstances of North Korea and Iran -- Pyongyang has nuclear weapons, Tehran just a program that could have led to them -- and then added: "We are not going to put together a nuclear deal in North Korea that is as flimsy as the one in Iran."
Tillerson's stop in the Chinese capital was helping lay the groundwork for a November state visit by Trump, part of a five-nation swing through Asia. Trump has pressed for sterner measures against the North by China, the North's chief trading partner and source of aid and diplomatic support.
Beijing adamantly opposes steps that could bring down Kim's government, but appears increasingly willing to tighten the screws. China has agreed to tough new U.N. penalties that would substantially cut foreign revenue for the isolated North.
On Thursday, Beijing ordered North Korean-owned businesses and ventures with Chinese partners to close by early January, days after it said it would cut off gas and limit shipments of refined petroleum products, effective Jan. 1. China made no mention of crude oil, which makes up the bulk of Chinese energy supplies to North Korea and is not covered by U.N. sanctions.
China has banned imports of North Korean coal, iron and lead ore, and seafood since early September. Still, Washington hopes China will exert even greater pressure.
China argues that sanctions alone cannot solve the impasse, and has urged Washington to cool its rhetoric and open a dialogue with North Korea. But the North is coming closer to having a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike America, and says it will discuss the weapons programs only if the U.S. abandons its "hostile policy" toward the North.
Tillerson's visit to China came as the Pentagon was considering a variety of military moves, including whether to strike at North Korea's missile launching sites if it sees preparations for an atmospheric test -- which would spew radioactivity into the skies -- or use defenses to try to shoot down missiles.
But at the end of the day, Tillerson tried to sound optimistic that traditional diplomacy would help resolve the North Korean issue, even though it has failed past presidents. Kim's regime, however, says it will never give up the weapons. The government has even enshrined its nuclear-armed status in its constitution.
"They can change their constitution," Tillerson said. "They created it, they can change it, especially the guys running North Korea, it's pretty easy for them to change it."
Still, Tillerson sounded more measured than other members of Trump's administration. He said that if he were to sit down with North Korea he would ask "what do you want to talk about -- because we haven't even got that far yet."
"You'd be foolish to say you're going to sit down and so, OK, done, nuclear weapons gone," Tillerson said. "This is going to be a process of engagement with North Korea" that will be done in steps, he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Joe McDonald, Christopher Bodeen and Matthew Pennington of The Associated Press; Nick Wadhams of Bloomberg News; and David E. Sanger of The New York Times.
A Section on 10/01/2017