Pyongyang: A senior North Korean official has put forward new conditions for talks with the US, saying Washington should give up its hostile policy before coming to the negotiation table with Pyongyang.
“The US always calls for negotiation for denuclearization, but there is no room to say about the negotiation before the complete and irrevocable withdrawal of its hostile policy toward the DPRK, the root cause of the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Tuesday citing Kim Yong Chol, chairman of the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, as saying on Monday night.
It will be possible to consult denuclearization only when confidence-building between the North and the US goes first and all the threats to the security and development of Pyongyang were removed, he stressed.
Earlier on Monday, advisor to North Korean Foreign Ministry Kim Kye Gwan also issued a statement, saying they were no longer interested in such talks that bring nothing to them, reports Xinhua news agency.
Denuclearization negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since February’s second summit in Hanoi between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump ended without a deal. The two leaders first met in Singapore in June 2018.
After an impromptu meeting with Kim Jong-un at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom this June, Trump said the US and the North Korea would set up teams to resume the stalled denuclearization talks in two to three weeks.
Meanwhile, the United States must end its joint exercises with Seoul “once and for all” to facilitate dialogue with Pyongyang, North Korea said on Tuesday, just days after the allies postponed planned drills.
The US and South Korea said Sunday they would delay annual joint aerial exercises slated for this month in an act of “goodwill” after months of deadlocked nuclear talks.
Pyongyang has long protested the joint drills, which it condemns as preparations for invasion, and Seoul and Washington last year cancelled several training sessions in the wake of the Singapore summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. (Agencies)
