White House Reaches Out to North Korea to Resume Ties: Axios

(Bloomberg) -- National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the White House has “reached out” to North Korea, seeking the resumption of diplomacy that has been dormant since October, Axios reported, citing a Friday interview with O’Brien.

The Trump administration has reached out to North Korea via “various channels,” O’Brien said, adding that there was some optimism that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has not yet delivered the “Christmas gift” he had promised to the U.S. -- expected by many to be a nuclear weapons test.

This does not mean North Korea won’t carry out some kind of test in the future, the official said. In the same interview, O’Brien said China is the biggest geopolitical challenge to the U.S.

North Korea’s state-run media said earlier this weekend it would not rely on the personal relationship between Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump and does not intend to trade its nuclear weapons for a lift of sanctions. South Korea’s National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong told reporters on Friday that Trump asked South Korea to send Kim Jong Un a birthday greeting.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Lichtenberg in New York at nlichtenberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chakradhar Adusumilli at cadusumilli@bloomberg.net, Niluksi Koswanage

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