• As Russia Sends Navy Ships to Pacific In Show of Strength

The White House on Monday ruled out talks with North Korea except to discuss the fate of Americans held there, again appearing to rebuke Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who said Washington was directly communicating with Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs.

“We’ve been clear that now is not the time to talk,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters, reiterating a tweet from President Donald Trump at the weekend that was seen as undercutting Tillerson.

“The only conversations that have taken place were that … would be on bringing back Americans who have been detained,” Sanders said. “Beyond that, there will be no conversations with North Korea at this time.”

Tillerson said on Saturday during a trip to China that the United States was directly communicating with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs but that Pyongyang had shown no interest in dialogue.

Trump, who has traded insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent weeks, later dismissed any prospect of talks with North Korea as a waste of time.

“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Trump wrote on Twitter, using his sarcastic nickname for Kim.

“Save your energy, Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!” Trump wrote.

It was not the first time the White House and State Department have seemed at odds on policy issues, but when asked if Trump still had confidence in Tillerson as secretary of state, Sanders said: “He does.”

A senior administration official said Tillerson misspoke.

“I think it was just him misspeaking. He was just acknowledging the fact that we do have channels and we might have reason to talk if North Korea’s behavior changes sometime down the road,” the official said.

Tillerson said in Beijing that the United States had multiple direct channels of communication with Pyongyang and that it was probing North Korea to see if it was interested in dialogue.

The top U.S. diplomat expressed hope for reducing tensions with North Korea, which is fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

“We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson told a small group of reporters. “We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?'” He said the United States had “a couple of, three, channels, open to Pyongyang.”

Another U.S. official said Tillerson may have overstated the status of U.S. lines of communication with North Korea for the benefit of his Chinese hosts, who have been pushing the Trump administration to do more to lure Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

Trump has vowed to halt North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and tensions have escalated in recent months, with Pyongyang conducting its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3. It has also threatened to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific.

The fate of Americans held in North Korea is also a bone of contention. The Trump administration has demanded North Korea release three U.S. citizens it has detained: missionary Kim Dong Chul and academics Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song.

The Trump White House and State Department have taken to divergent stances on other foreign policy issues.

When a dispute over Qatar erupted this year, Trump strongly backed Gulf Arab leaders who accuse Qatar of supporting Iran as well as Islamist militants. Trump accused Qatar of being a “high-level” funder of terrorism even as the Pentagon and Tillerson cautioned against the military, commercial and humanitarian effects of a boycott imposed by Arab states.

Months into the dispute, Trump adopted a position more in line with that of the State Department.

In the meantime, Russia is sending two anti-submarine warships and a tanker to the Pacific Ocean in a show of strength around the Korean peninsula and the South China Sea, areas where tensions are already high due to ongoing disputes.

The Admiral Vinogradov and Admiral Panteleyev destroyers, as well as the Boris Butomatanker sailed from Russia’s Vladivostok base and will call at nine foreign ports in the next four months, a naval spokesman told state news agency RIA Novosti on Monday.

According to the Russian Pacific Fleet’s spokesman, Vladimir Matveev, “the main goal of the journey is showcasing the Andreevsky flag in the Asia Pacific Region and to further develop maritime cooperation with Asia Pacific countries.” He did not specify which countries will host the Russian ships.

The Andreevsky flag is the ensign of the Russian Navy—a blue St. Andrew’s cross on a white background. Matveev said the ships prepared for the trip with a combat readiness drill to check their ability to defend themselves should they encounter danger in the next few months. The destroyers trained warding off an aerial attack with missiles and artillery fire against both air and sea targets, at a training range in the Sea of Japan.

Russia military and naval capabilities have been focussed mostly on the West, however Moscow has increasingly appeared to seek to reinforce its post-Cold War capabilities in the far east.

Russia’s Pacific Fleet will be bolstered by the arrival of two new Varshavyanka-class diesel-powered submarines: the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky will arrive first in late 2019, followed by the Volkhov. Since 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken of a desire to rebuild Russia’s trade and military presence in the Asia Pacific.

The Russian navy wrapped up a war game with China off the coast of Vladivostok last month, a year after they staged a similar event in the South China Sea.

MSN