US nuclear envoy says looking forward to positive response on dialogue from N Korea: Report

The USspecial representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, said on Monday, he looks forward to a positive response on dialogue from North Korea, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Sung Kim is in South Korea for a five-day visit, with no word of any planned efforts to contact the North.

Earlier, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had said his country needs to prepare for 'both dialogue and confrontation' with the United States under President Joe Biden, state media had reported.

At a plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, Kim outlined his strategy for relations with Washington, and the 'policy tendency of the newly emerged US administration', the Korean Central News Agency said.

Kim 'stressed the need to get prepared for both dialogue and confrontation, especially to get fully prepared for confrontation to protect the dignity of our state' and reliably guarantee a 'peaceful environment', KCNA reported.

The North Korean leader "called for sharply and promptly reacting to and coping with the fast-changing situation and concentrating efforts on taking stable control of the situation on the Korean peninsula", the agency said.

Pyongyang had already accused Biden of pursuing a 'hostile policy' and saying it was a 'big blunder' for the veteran Democrat to say he would deal with the threat posed by the North's nuclear programme 'through diplomacy as well as stern deterrence'.

In 2019, the North said Biden should be 'beaten to death with a stick'.

(With inputs from agencies)