North Korea refuses to improve relations with the United States. This statement was made by First Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Song-hee, reports the North Korean Central Telegraph Agency (CTAC).
According to her, the country’s government will not “react to the US games” until they reverse their hostile policy towards the DPRK. That is why Pyongyang intends to ignore the attempts of the American side to establish contact.
She added that the American theory of the North Korean threat is a “crazy version.” Choi stressed that she considers the rhetoric about the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula “rash nonsense.” She also pointed out that the United States still has a “bad habit of desperately slandering and finding fault” with the DPRK. Choi described the statements of the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken as “stupid nonsense”.
Deutsche Welle writes that the words of the first deputy minister sounded against the background of Blinken’s meeting with the head of the Ministry of Defense of South Korea Seo Wuk in Seoul. The talks discussed the importance of the US-South Korean alliance and how it can counter the growing influence of China and North Korea’s nuclear program. Blinken also said that the United States will complete a review of its policy towards North Korea in the coming weeks, and that pressure on Pyongyang and diplomatic options are on the agenda.
On March 16, the sister of DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, Kim Ye-jong, sharply condemned the latest joint exercises of South Korea and the United States. She threatened that the DPRK could liquidate all departments responsible for the dialogue between the Koreas.
Earlier, the representative of the US State Department, Jalina Porter, spoke about several unsuccessful attempts by the American authorities to contact North Korea. Porter noted that the United States tried to contact the DPRK through several channels.
Since 2018, the United States and the DPRK have been negotiating the denuclearization of North Korea. US President Donald Trump said he was ready to lift sanctions from the republic in the event of an agreement on this issue. However, the latest talks in October 2019 fell through, which was announced in Pyongyang but denied in the United States. In December 2020, the DPRK announced that it did not need further dialogue with the United States on the issue of denuclearization: Pyongyang refuses to unilaterally reduce its nuclear weapons.