Biegun reaffirms commitment to US-SKorea alliance

U.S. Nuclear Envoy Stephen Biegun on Wednesday emphasized his country's commitment to political and military cooperation with South Korea, following meetings with South Korean officials on stalled nuclear diplomacy.

"The United States' commitment is ironclad to the defense of the Korean peninsula," said Biegun.

The meetings with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa and First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Sei-young on Wednesday morning came a day after North Korea said it had no immediate intent to resume a dialogue with the U.S.

In a statement released through the North's official Korean Central News Agency, senior North Korean foreign ministry official Kwon Jong Gun also ridiculed “nonsensical” calls by South Korea for revived negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea, saying it had lost its relevance as a mediator.

The State Department said Biegun, who is also President Donald Trump’s special representative for North Korea, will discuss cooperation on a range of issues in meetings this week with officials in South Korea and Japan, including the “final, fully verified denuclearization” of North Korea.

Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have met three times since 2018.

But negotiations have faltered since their second summit in February last year in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability.

Amid the stalemate in talks, North Korea has repeatedly said in recent months that it would no longer give Trump the gift of high-profile meetings he could boast of as foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return.

North Korea has also been dialing up pressure on the South, cutting off virtually all cooperation and blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office in its territory last month, following months of frustration over Seoul’s unwillingness to defy U.S.-led sanctions and restart joint economic projects that would help the North's broken economy.

Biegun is set to meet South Korea's newly appointed National Security Council chairman Suh Hoon on Thursday.

The U.S. representative is on a four-day trip to South Korea and Japan.