US ready to talk any time North Korea wants Tillerson says
Tillerson's remarks at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington came two weeks after North Korea conducted a test with a missile that could potentially carry a nuclear warhead to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard -- a milestone in its decades-long drive to pose an atomic threat to its American adversary that Trump has vowed to prevent  using military force if necessary.
In  public  Trump  has been less sanguine about the possibilities of diplomacy with Kim Jong Un's authoritarian government  which faces growing international isolation and sanctions as  it  pursues nuclear weapons in defiance of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. In October   Trump  appeared to undercut Tillerson when he said he was "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with the North Korea  just as Tillerson said the U.S. had backchannel communications with the North.
Trump  who has traded insults with Kim  kept up his tough talk on Tuesday. As he signed a $700 billion defense authorization bill that includes additional spending on missile defense  he referred to North Korea as a "vile dictatorship."
"We're working very diligently on that -- building up forces. We'll see how it all turns out. It's a very bad situation -- a situation that should have been handled long ago by other administrations " Trump said.
Tillerson's remarks at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington came two weeks after North Korea conducted a test with a missile that could potentially carry a nuclear warhead to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard -- a milestone in its decades-long drive to pose an atomic threat to its American adversary that [TGT] has vowed to prevent  using military force if necessary.
In  public  [TGT]has been less sanguine about the possibilities of diplomacy with Kim Jong Un's authoritarian government  which faces growing international isolation and sanctions as  [TGT]  pursues nuclear weapons in defiance of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. In October   [TGT]  appeared to undercut Tillerson when he said he was "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with the North Korea  just as Tillerson said the U.S. had backchannel communications with the North.
[TGT]who has traded insults with Kim  kept up [TGT] tough talk on Tuesday. As he signed a $700 billion defense authorization bill that includes additional spending on missile defense  he referred to North Korea as a "vile dictatorship."
"We're working very diligently on that -- building up forces. We'll see how it all turns out. It's a very bad situation -- a situation that should have been handled long ago by other administrations [TGT] said.