Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence are on the same page about potential talks with North Korea during the Winter Olympics in later this month, according to an administration official.
Tillerson made news on Monday when he told reporters that he wouldn’t rule out talks with North Korea during the Olympics, which will take place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Pence is leading the American delegation to the event.
The administration stresses that no meeting is planned with North Korean representatives. “All it does is indicate anything is possible,” the administration official told CBS News.
The secretive North Korean dictatorship, which has been locked in a war of words with the U.S. government, is sending its own delegation to the South Korean games. That itself is significant, as the two Koreas have never formally signed a peace treaty since the end of the war between the two countries in 1953.
North Korea has embarked on an aggressive nuclear and missile program, and has tested rockets that are believed to be able to strike the U.S. mainland. Tillerson has said repeatedly that the impasse can still be fixed via diplomacy. Meanwhile, other U.S. officials, such as National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, have pushed for small-scale strikes against North Korea to dissuade them from firther missile and nuclear development.
American athletes have also not been dissuaded from talking to their North Korean counterparts at the games, according to the administration official.
CBS News’ Kylie Atwood contributed reporting to this story.
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