| U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un take a walk after their first meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam in this Feb. 28 file photo. North Korea says nuclear negotiations with the United States will never resume unless Washington changes its negotiating tactics. AP |
North Korea said Friday that nuclear negotiations with the United States will never resume unless President Donald Trump's administration moves away from what it described as unilateral demands for disarmament.
The statement by an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman published in state media was the country's latest expression of displeasure over the stalled nuclear negotiations as it continues to press Washington to soften its stance on enforcing sanctions against Pyongyang's crippled economy.
It came as President Trump prepares to travel to Japan this weekend for a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in which the North Korean nuclear issue will likely be high on the agenda.
In the statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, the spokesman accused the U.S. of deliberately causing the collapse of the February summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with unilateral and impossible demands.
“We hereby make it clear once again that the United States will not be able to move us even an inch with the device it is now weighing in its mind, and the further its mistrust and hostile acts toward the DPRK grow, the fiercer our reaction will be,”' the statement said, referring to North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
“Unless the United States puts aside the current method of calculation and comes forward with a new method of calculation, the DPRK-U.S. dialogue will never be resumed and by extension, the prospect for resolving the nuclear issue will be much gloomier,” the statement added.
The U.S. has said the Trump-Kim talks broke down because of North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities. Kim has since declared that the Trump administration has until the end of the year to come up with mutually acceptable terms for a deal.
Friday's statement follows two separate launches of short-range missiles earlier this month, which ended a pause in North Korea's ballistic missile tests that began in late 2017, and was seen as measured brinkmanship aimed at increasing pressure on Washington without actually causing the negotiations to collapse. The North has also strongly protested the recent U.S. seizure of a North Korean cargo ship, which had been involved in banned coal exports, and demanded the vessel to be immediately returned.
Following the collapse of the Trump-Kim summit, North Korea also significantly slowed the pace of its engagement with South Korea, which has been eager to improve bilateral relations and help revive discussions between Washington and Pyongyang.
South Korea earlier this week vowed to push ahead with plans to resume large-scale humanitarian aid to the North. But it's unclear whether any aid package from the South will influence the behavior of the North, which has been demanding much bigger concessions from Seoul, such as the resumption of inter-Korean economic projects currently blocked by U.S.-led sanctions against Pyongyang. (AP)