US Hopes North Korea Will "Engage Diplomatically": Antony Blinken

Alluding to North Korea's initial reaction, Antony Blinken said: "We'll look to see not only what North Korea says but what it actually does in the coming days and months."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday asked North Korea to embrace diplomacy as he briefed allies on a new US strategy that stresses low-key progress rather than Donald Trump's pageantry. In London for the first in-person Group of Seven meetings in two years, Blinken consulted his counterparts from Japan and South Korea on President Joe Biden's new policy approach which has already been denounced by Pyongyang. "I hope that North Korea will take the opportunity to engage diplomatically and to see if there are ways to move forward toward the objective of complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Blinken told reporters. "It is, I think, up to North Korea to decide whether it wants to engage or not on that basis," he said after meeting his UK counterpart Dominic Raab.