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South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha urged North Korea on Monday to respond to her government's call for cross-border talks on easing tensions.
The communist regime has posed a growing threat by aggressively testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
"The political and diplomatic efforts toward the denuclearization of North Korea and improvements in South-North relations can and must be pursued in a mutually reinforcing manner," Kang told a forum in Washington, where she is on her first solo trip as Seoul's top diplomat.
"In this regard, we once again urge the North to respond to our concrete proposals to revive South-North contacts beginning with two very small proposals made on July 17th and start laying the building blocks for inter-Korean reconciliation and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula," she said.
President Moon Jae-in's liberal administration took office in May under a pledge to restore strained ties with the North. Two months later, it proposed the two Koreas meet to ease military tensions and resume reunions of families separated in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Pyongyang has yet to respond.
There is still room for diplomacy, Kang said, but "time is running out."
"In tackling the North Korea issue the vital importance of close coordination between the ROK and U.S. cannot be overemphasized," she said, using the acronym of South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
Kang accompanied Moon to the U.N. General Assembly in New York last week.
In Washington, she plans to meet with U.S. government officials, lawmakers and academics to coordinate their response to the North Korean threat, call for bipartisan cooperation to strengthen the bilateral alliance and prepare for U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to South Korea in November. (Yonhap)
