President Trump has signaled to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un his hope to resume diplomacy since negotiations over denuclearizing the Korean peninsula stalled late last year.
National security adviser Robert O’Brien told Axios in a report published Sunday that the Trump administration has “reached out to the North Koreans” to “talk about a range of national security challenges” after conversations between the United States and North Korea have been all but dead since October.
“We’ve reached out to the North Koreans and let them know that we would like to continue the negotiations in Stockholm that were last undertaken in early October,” O’Brien said. “We’ve been letting them know, through various channels, that we would like to get those [negotiations] back on track and to implement Chairman Kim’s commitment” to denuclearization.
The national security adviser also noted that North Korea’s failure to send the U.S. its promised “Christmas gift,” which many believed was going to be a long-range missile test, could be a good sign.
“The president suggested he send him a vase. We didn’t get a vase or any other sort of Christmas gift. That appears to be positive,” he said. “All we know is we were told we were going to get a Christmas gift, and the Christmas gift didn’t come. And so I think that was an encouraging sign. But, again, that doesn’t mean we won’t see some sort of test in the future.”
Trump has been working toward denuclearizing the peninsula and promoting peace between North and South Korea since he took office. This past summer, he made history as the only president to cross the demilitarized zone into North Korea.
Around the same time, he left a summit with Kim and declared, “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” However, evidence indicates that the country’s nuclear arsenal has expanded since, with some estimating that the nation has between 20-30 nuclear warheads.
Last month, former national security adviser John Bolton blasted the administration’s “rhetorical policy” on North Korea, arguing that the president has been bluffing on his vow to denuclearize the peninsula.
