A high-ranking North Korean diplomat said Pyongyang has no interest in restarting negotiations with the United States and is shocked at the suggestion that talks can be held under present strain in bilateral relations.
“Now is a very sensitive time when even the slightest misjudgment and misstep would incur fatal and irrevocable consequences. We cannot but be shocked at the story about the summit indifferent to the present situation of the DPRK-U.S. relations”, according to a statement from Choe Son Hui, first vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).
According to the statement, published in state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), rumors circulating in Washington that US-DPRK must be renewed before the presidential election are little more than political pipe dreams.
The statement went on to dismiss the possibility of renewal in talks due to US “hostile policy” and disregard of agreements made in past summits.
“It is clear to us, even without meeting, with what shallow trick the US will approach us as it has neither intention nor will to go back to the drawing board”, Choe added in the statement.
The US considers dialogue with the DPRK as a tool for grappling with its internal political crisis, the statement went on to say.
North Korea has been engaged in denuclearization talks with the United States since 2018. The country’s leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump expressed their commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during talks in Singapore in June 2018.
However, the next negotiations between the two leaders collapsed due to disagreements over the timing of sanctions relief.
Source: Sputnik
