The Trump administration pumped the brakes after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated a shift in policy towards North Korea, telling a gathering in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that the State Department is willing to talk with officials from Pyongyang “without precondition."

A statement from White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said President Trump's views on North Korea, which has repeatedly threatened the U.S. with its missile and nuclear weapons programs, "have not changed."

"North Korea is acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China, and South Korea, but the entire world," Sanders said. "North Korea's actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea."

North Korea appears to be making progress in its missile program. At the end of November it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, which experts said is the most threatening yet because its projected range could reach the U.S. East Coast.

Amid rising concerns, Tillerson told a D.C. crowd Tuesday: “We’re ready to have the first meeting without precondition."

"Let's just meet," he continued. "We can talk about the weather if you want. We can talk about whether it's going to be a square table or a round table, if that's what you're excited about. But can we at least sit down and see each other face-to-face. And then we can begin to lay out a map, a roadmap, of what we might be willing to work towards."

The comments stand in stark contrast to Tillerson's more uncompromising prior stance, in which he ruled out negotiations based on anything other than North Korea agreeing to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

But, on Tuesday, Tillerson said such a stance is "not realistic."

He also mentioned that Trump is "very realistic about that as well.”

The diverging viewpoints on North Korea between Tillerson and the White House follows months of rumors about a rift between Trump and Tillerson — rumors which Tillerson has vehemently pushed back against. There was also a report of a White House plan to replace Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, but the Trump administration refuted it.