Nuclear program of North Korea

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will visit Beijing next week to resume talks with Chinese officials, state media said on May 25, as the two sides seek to avoid a trade war.

South Korea's foreign minister has said that North Korea's leader has "given his word" that he is committed to denuclearization, a prime condition for a potential summit with President Donald Trump in May.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Australia said on Sunday they held “grave concerns” about escalating tensions caused by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

A senior North Korean diplomat left for Finland on Sunday for talks with former U.S. and South Korean officials, Yonhap News Agency reported, amid a series of diplomatic encounters ahead of a possible U.S.-North Korean summit, Reuters reported. 

President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by May, setting in motion the most significant development in years of intermittent negotiations about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, reports CNBC. 

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said yesteday sanctions on North Korea will not be eased for the sake of a summit with Pyongyang, but China’s state media warned nuclear North Korea will not be intimidated and that talks were the only solution.

North and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade in late April, the South's presidential office said on Tuesday after a senior delegation returned from a visit to the North where they met leader Kim Jong Un, according to Reuters. 

North Korea on Feb. 22 accused U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of being a “kind of henchman who is representing the United States” after the U.N. chief said sanctions were essential to pressure Pyongyang.

Twenty nations agreed on Jan. 16 to consider tougher sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Pyongyang it could trigger a military response if it did not choose negotiations.

The United States has given China a draft resolution for tougher U.N. sanctions on North Korea and is hoping for a quick vote on it by the U.N. Security Council, a Western diplomat said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.