Seoul: North Korea on Saturday reiterated it has no immediate plans to resume nuclear negotiations with the United States unless Washington discards what it describes as “hostile” polices toward Pyongyang.
The statement by North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui came days after President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, told reporters that Trump might seek another summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as an “October surprise” ahead of the US presidential election.
Choe’s statement followed a series of similar declarations by the North that it would no longer gift Trump with high-profile meetings he could boast of as his foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return. “Is it possible to hold dialogue or have any dealings with the US which persists in the hostile policy toward the DPRK in disregard of the agreements already made at the past summit?” Choe said, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“We do not feel any need to sit face-to-face with the U.S., as it does not consider the DPRK-U.S. dialogue as nothing more than a tool for grappling its political crisis,” she said.
The North in recent months have also been ramping up pressure against South Korea, and threatening to abandon a bilateral military agreement. (PTI)
