THE White House said Monday that the United States remains prepared to engage with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), after Pyongyang tested a new type of long-range cruise missiles over the weekend.

“Our position has not changed when it comes to North Korea,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We remain prepared to engage in diplomacy with the DPRK toward our objective of a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

She reaffirmed the Joe Biden administration’s “calibrated, practical approach” in dealing with Pyongyang, which is open to exploring diplomacy to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States and its allies.

“Our offer remains to meet anywhere, anytime without preconditions,” Jean-Pierre added.

The DPRK successfully test-fired a new type of long-range cruise missiles Saturday and Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday.

The launched long-range cruise missiles traveled for 7,580 seconds along oval and pattern-8 flight orbits in the air above the territorial land and waters of the DPRK and hit targets 1,500 km away, the report said.

“We’re aware of these reports of these cruise missile launches,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a Monday briefing. He said the United States is consulting with regional allies and monitoring the situation, adding U.S. security commitments to Japan and South Korea are ironclad.

The missile tests came after a joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States in August. It also came before the U.S. envoy for the DPRK Sung Kim’s meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Tokyo this week.

The Biden administration said it would engage with Pyongyang over the denuclearization issue but showed no willingness to ease sanctions.

Senior diplomats from Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed yesterday to continue their efforts toward the denuclearization of the DPRK, a day after Pyongyang conducted the missile test.

“The recent developments in the DPRK are a reminder of the importance of close communication and cooperation from the three countries,” Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for the DPRK, said in his opening remarks at a meeting with Takehiro Funakoshi, director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at Japan’s Foreign Ministry, and Noh Kyu-duk, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs.

The three agreed “dialogue and diplomacy was urgent to accomplish the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing calls on relevant parties to exercise restraint, meet each other halfway, actively engage in dialogue and contact, and push forward a political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue.

(SD-Xinhua)