SEOUL, May 22: North Korea confirmed on Sunday a rare meeting with the United States had taken place earlier this month and announced it would give its latest position on the nuclear stand-off “when the time is right”, state media said.

“We will continue to closely watch the US attitude, and when the time is right, we will officially deliver our position to the United States through a New York contact,” an unidentified North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said.

His comments were in response to a question by the official KCNA news agency and were carried in a report by South Korea’s Yonhap. Washington had already confirmed on Thursday that “working-level” talks took place with North Korea on May 13 to urge the hardline communist state to return to talks on ending its nuclear weapons drive.—AFP