A key North Korean official says expectations for talks with the U.S. are now fading. The official issued a statement blaming U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo for discussing what he described as North Korea’s “rogue behavior.”
Kim Bum-soo has more.
Report: North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui raised issues with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech this week, during which he discussed North Korea’s “rogue behavior.”
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) on Saturday cited Choe as saying expectations for dialogue with the U.S. are gradually disappearing.
While arguing her country was pushed into a situation where all measures it has taken need to be reconsidered, Choe targeted Pompeo, saying Pyongyang is curious about the background of his “thoughtless remarks” and calculations.
She said the U.S. should not try to test North Korea’s patience any longer.
“We recognized, we recognized that North Korea’s rogue behavior could not be ignored. Those are at the center. These are at the core of America’s founding principles because Americanism means standing up for our principles for the American people and supporting our unalienable rights wherever we go,” Mike Pompeo said.
After giving a speech to American veterans on Tuesday, Pompeo on Friday blamed North Korea again, alongside a handful of other countries, for disappearances of people deemed to be threats to their regimes.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that working-level nuclear negotiations would resume within weeks after he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the inter-Korean border in June.
Two months after the surprise DMZ meeting, analysts say no substantial progress has been made beyond the optics of Trump and Kim shaking hands across the inter-Korean border.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho warned in a statement last week that Washington would be “sadly mistaken” if it was going to continue to apply sanctions pressure against Pyongyang.