North Korea: ‘Reckless remarks’ by Pompeo show US doesn’t want nuclear talks

North Korean officials on Monday said it was “reckless” for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to call on the international community to unify in pressuring Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs, adding that his comments illustrate that the U.S. had no sincere desire for negotiations.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry’s director general in charge of negotiations with Washington said Pompeo’s remarks following a Group of Seven teleconference last week indicate Washington has no plan to avert a “countdown of confrontation,” according to The Associated Press.

Pompeo “seriously impaired the signboard of dialogue put up by the U.S. president as a decoy to buy time and create the environment favorable for himself,” Pyongyang said in the statement, referencing a personal letter from President Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offering help in stemming the coronavirus pandemic, the news service noted.

North Korea did not commit to any action in response but said the nation will repay “the pains the U.S. has imposed on our people” in an apparent reference to sanctions imposed by Washington, according to the AP.

Kim said in late 2019 that he would no longer abide by a self-imposed nuclear and long-range missile test moratorium, promising to unveil a “new strategic weapon” in the near future. A nuclear summit between Trump and Kim in Vietnam, their second such meeting, broke down in 2019, with Trump refusing to lift sanctions in exchange for partial disarmament on Pyongyang’s part.

North Korea has conducted several short-range missile and artillery test launches in recent weeks, none of which posed a direct threat to the U.S. A series of major nuclear tests in 2017 heightened international fears of potential war, but Kim later announced, ahead of direct negotiations with Trump, that the nation would suspend nuclear and long-range missile testing.