North Korea on Friday said that talks with the Trump administration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will not resume unless the U.S. changes its tack and moves away from demands for unilateral disarmament from the North.
The Associated Press reported Friday that Kim Jong Un’s government released a statement through the state-run Korean Central News Agency that accused U.S. negotiators of deliberately blowing up talks between the two countries with a set of unreasonable demands.
{mosads}“We hereby make it clear once again that the United States would 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,” read the statement from North Korea’s foreign ministry.
“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 gloomy,” it reportedly continued.
U.S. officials have blamed the breakdown of talks on North Korea’s desire to see some U.S. sanctions walked back before further decommission of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program occurs.
Earlier this month President Trump said that he and U.S. officials were not “happy” about a recent missile test undertaken by North Korea, the first of such type since bilateral negotiations began last year, but expressed confidence that Kim would not back away from the negotiating table.
“We’re looking at it very seriously right now. They were smaller missiles. Short-range missiles,” Trump said earlier in the month.
“Nobody’s happy about it, but we’re taking a good look and we’ll see. We’ll see,” the president continued. “The relationship continues, but we’ll see what happens. I know they want to negotiate, they’re talking about negotiating, but I don’t think they’re ready to negotiate.”