The head of the North Korean delegation to the Winter Olympics has reiterated that the door for dialogue with the United States is open.
Kim Yong-chol made the comment during a meeting with Choi Eui-yong, chief of South Korea's National Security Council and the top security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, held at a hotel in Seoul, a presidential office spokesperson told EFE.
Kim's remark on Monday came after he told the South Korean president on Sunday that the regime has "enough" willingness to talk to the US right away, even after Washington announced new sanctions against Pyongyang on Friday.
The high-level North Korean delegation has been visiting South Korea for the Olympics in PyeongChang, which ended on Sunday.
The Winter Games led to the biggest thaw in years between the two Koreas, which are technically still at war.
Seoul believes this "Olympic thaw" could lead Washington and Pyongyang to the negotiating table after 2017 was marked by North Korea's repeated weapons tests and verbal threats between the two countries.
Earlier White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump was committed to achieving the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation" of the peninsula.
Sanders said the US, South Korea and others agreed denuclearisation must be the result of any dialogue with North Korea.
She said Trump's "maximum pressure campaign" must continue until North Korea abandons its nuclear and missile programs.
The Council of the European Union said it was aligning sanctions against North Korea in line with the latest United Nations resolution.
The measures adopted by the UN and put in place by the EU on Monday included "the strengthening of the export ban to the DPRK (North Korea) of all refined petroleum products by reducing the amount of barrels that may be exported from two million barrels to 500,000 barrels per year," a council statement said.
The sanctions also entailed a ban on imports from North Korea of other products, such as food, machinery, electronics, stone and wood.
