EU Holds 'Secret' Nuclear Talks With North Korea – Reports

EU Parliament delegation has been in secret nuclear talks with North Korea for the past three years, the lead negotiator revealed Wednesday, according to UK media.

"I did much of the advocacy in secrecy with my colleagues. It is only now that I am revealing our efforts to a wider audience in the light of the proposed talks," British lawmaker Nirj Deva said, as quoted by The Telegraph newspaper.

The announcement comes less than a week after US President Donald Trump agreed to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un by May to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, in what will be the first meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting US president.

Deva said the EU delegation had been calling for Pyongyang to sit down at the negotiating table without preconditions. EU legislators had reportedly met North Koreans, including ministers, over a dozen times and were planning another meeting in Brussels in the near future.

Earlier, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini highlighted the importance of the international community’s efforts toward the settlement of the situation in the Korean peninsula.

Federica Mogherini stressed that the upcoming negotiations between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump might contribute to the diplomatic solution of the Korean peninsula’s nuclear issue.