North Korea needs to take series of steps to mend ties with US: Haley

A day after US President Donald Trump said he is open to talks with the North Korean leader, his top Indian-American diplomat to the US said that Pyongyang needs to take a series of steps to make that happen.

Prominent among them being stop testing missiles and nuclear weapons and be willing to talk about banning their nuclear weapons, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley was quoted as saying by ABC News in an interview on Sunday.

"There is no turnaround," Haley said when asked if Trump's statement at Camp David on Saturday meant any reversal of the stated US policy with regard to talks with North Korea.

"What he (Trump) has basically said is yes, there could be a time where we talk to North Korea but a lot of things have to happen before that actually takes place," Haley said.

They have to stop testing. They have to be willing to talk about banning their nuclear weapons. Those things have to happen.

"What we're trying to do is make sure we don't repeat what's happened the last 25 years," she said.

"Which is them start to act like they're coming to the table, them ask for a lot of money and then them cheat their way through. We're going to be smart this time. We're going to make sure that whatever happens makes the United

States safer and make sure that we de-nuclearise the peninsula," Haley said.

Haley said stop testing is very important and has to be for a significant amount of time.

"And then you go and you work toward the next step. This is going to be phases. This isn't going to happen overnight as we've seen, but it's a dangerous situation," she said.