MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th September, 2018) The United Nations does not plan to interfere in the process of talks between the United States and North Korea with any parallel initiatives, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
"There is a central issue which is the negotiation between the US and North Korea ... We are ready to support [the talks], we believe that the two parties need to define how the verification of denuclearization is to be established, it's a complex issue. Based on what the two parties will agree, we are ready to do our role. What we are not going to do is to interfere in the negotiations or to come with parallel initiatives that might complicate things," Guterres said in a Wednesday interview with the CNN broadcaster, when asked if he was aware of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's invitation for international observers to monitor the dismantling of the country's nuclear weapons sites.
Guterres added UN observers had not yet been invited to participate in this process.
Pyongyang and Washington have for years faced confrontation over the North Korean nuclear weapons program and the US military buildup on the Korean Peninsula.
However, the relations between the two states have seen a rapprochement recently. In June, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a landmark summit in Singapore. During the high-level talks, North Korea expressed its commitment to abandon its nuclear weapons program, while the United States pledged to provide security guarantees to Pyongyang.
On Wednesday, UK State Secretary Mike Pompeo said Washington was ready to immediately engage in talks to transform its bilateral relations with Pyongyang.
