Kerry, S. Korea Offer More Talks with N. Korea

Trying to calm down the crazy

South Korea and the U.S. both offered to return to negotiations with North Korea, aiming talks at Pyongyang's nuclear program and broader security threats in a bid to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula that American officials said run the risk of a direct military conflict.

Senior South Korean officials who met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Seoul Friday, said their government also was willing to resume sending humanitarian assistance to the North following weeks of escalating threats by North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun to attack U.S. and allied targets in North Asia and the Pacific.

These South Korea officials said the aid shipments could form a pillar of recently elected President Park Geun-hye's "trust" policy toward Pyongyang, which seeks to reverse some of the hard-line tactics pursued by her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak.