North Korea has warned it could revive a state policy aimed at strengthening its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country.<\/p>\n
The statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Friday evening said North Korea could bring back its \u201cpyongjin\u201d policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic development if the United States doesn\u2019t change its stance. The North sopped short of threatening to abandon ongoing nuclear negotiations with Washington.<\/p>\n
Still, it accused Washington of derailing commitments made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump at their June summit in Singapore to work toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. It was the first time the North said it could potentially resume weapons tests and other development activities since Kim signaled a new state policy in April.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he plans to talk next week with his North Korean counterpart, apparently referring to senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol. Pompeo did not provide the location and date for the meeting, which will likely be focused on persuading North Korea to take firmer steps toward denuclearization and setting up a second summit between their leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of work remains, but I\u2019m confident that we will keep the economic pressure in place until such time as Chairman Kim fulfills the commitment he made to President Trump back in June in Singapore,\u201d Pompeo said.<\/p>\n
The North Korean Foreign Ministry statement, released under the name of the director of the ministry\u2019s Institute for American Studies, said the \u201cimprovement of relations and sanctions is incompatible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. thinks that its oft-repeated \u2018sanctions and pressure\u2019 leads to \u2018denuclearization.\u2019 We cannot help laughing at such a foolish idea,\u201d it said. The ministry described the lifting of U.S.-led sanctions as corresponding action to the North\u2019s \u201cproactive and good-will measures,\u201d apparently referring to its unilateral suspension of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and closure of a nuclear testing ground.<\/p>\n
Following a series of provocative nuclear and missile tests last year, Kim shifted to diplomacy when he met with Trump between three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who lobbied hard to revive nuclear diplomacy.<\/p>\n
However, the North has been playing hardball since the summits, insisting that sanctions should be lifted before any progress in nuclear talks, which fueled doubts about whether Kim would ever deal away a nuclear program he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival.<\/p>\n
Ahead of his first summit with Moon in April, Kim said the country should shift its focus to economic development as the \u201cpyongjin\u201d policy had achieved a \u201cgreat victory.\u201d He also declared that the North would stop nuclear and long-range missile tests. The North dismantled its nuclear testing ground in May, but didn\u2019t invite experts to observe and verify the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the U.S. keeps behaving arrogantly without showing any change in its stand, while failing to properly understand our repeated demand, the DPRK may add one thing to the state policy for directing all efforts to the economic construction adopted in April and as a result, the word \u2018pyongjin\u2019 may appear again,\u201d Friday\u2019s statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea has warned it could revive a state policy aimed at strengthening its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country. The statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Friday evening said North Korea could bring back its \u201cpyongjin\u201d policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46293,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46291\/revisions\/46293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}