Biden, South Korea's Moon express willingness to engage North Korea

(file) US President Joe Biden (R) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in

US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday injected fresh urgency into attempts to engage North Korea in dialogue over its nuclear weapons, with Biden saying he would meet its leader Kim Jong Un under the right conditions. Biden and Moon said the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is their goal, with Biden stressing he was ‘under no illusions’ about the difficulty of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenals after his predecessors failed. ‘We both are deeply concerned about the situation,’ Biden said at a joint news conference, adding that he and Moon shared a willingness to engage diplomatically with the North and ‘to take pragmatic steps to reduce tensions.’ North Korea has rebuffed US entreaties for diplomacy since Biden took over from Donald Trump, who had three summits with Kim and famously exchanged ‘beautiful letters’ with the third-generation leader.