North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Ready for Summit Talks With Seoul: Reports

Kim Jong Un pledged to make "every effort" to advance talks with South Korea, adding he has "no reasons" not to meet for high-level talks with his counterpart, President Park Geun-hye.

MOSCOW, January 1 (Sputnik) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said during his New year's Eve address he was willing to hold summit talks with the South Korean president in 2015, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said early Thursday.

According to the Seoul-based agency, the North Korean leader pledged to make "every effort" to advance talks with South Korea, adding he had "no reasons" not to meet for high-level talks with his counterpart, President Park Geun-hye.

Kim Jong Un said the North-South relations needed a "big change", though he added the progress depended on the "mood and circumstances" that were to be created.

This apparent breakthrough comes after South Korea's reunification committee proposed to hold ministerial talks as early as in January 2015.

The two countries are still formally at war, as no peace treaty was ever signed after the Korean War of 1950-1953.

Relations between the two soured in October when Pyongyang threatened Seoul with a freeze on the long-awaited high-level talks in protest against the actions of South Korean activists who have been floating thousands of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets tied to balloons across the border into the North.