North Korea’s top diplomat has called the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, a “diehard toxin” who only troubles the denuclearisation dialogue and said North Korea was ready for both dialogues and standoff.
Talks objected to the disarmament of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs that were put into a coma since a failed second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in February.
Trump and Kim met again in June at the inter-Korean border and agreed to restart the working-level negotiations for the nuclear treaty.
Since their last meeting, North Korea has launched a series of short-range missiles 6 times in a row, threatening US-South Korea joint military drill and the adoption of new weapons.
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Since the Vietnam summit, North Korea has demanded that Pompeo be replaced with a “more mature” person while praising the friendly relationship developed between Kim and Trump.
The North Korean foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, who took part in the Hanoi summit along with Pompeo, called the chief US negotiator the “diehard toxin of US diplomacy” who sustains “hackneyed sanctions rhetoric“.
Ri mentioned Pompeo’s remarks in media briefings, in which he said sanctions would be kept until North Korea made obvious actions on denuclearisation.
“He is truly impudent enough to utter such thoughtless words which only leave us disappointed and skeptical as to whether we can solve any problem with such a guy,” Ri said to the news agency.
Ri also accused Pompeo of casting “dark shadows” over the dialogues and being more interested in his self-beneficial political ambitions than in US foreign policy.
“If the US still dreams a pipe dream of gaining everything through sanctions, we are left with two options, either to leave it enjoying the dream to its heart’s content or to wake it up from the dream,” Ri said.
“We are ready for both dialogue and standoff,” he added.
The United States and North Korea are now expected to reopen denuclearisation talks soon and they will move forward with it, awakening hopes for progress in negotiations after a prolonged delay.