North Korea has warned it could revive a state policy aimed at bolstering its nuclear arsenal if the US does not lift economic sanctions against it.
The North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said in a statement that the nation could bring back its pyongjin, “dual advancement,” policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic development if the US does not change its stance.
Pyongyang accused Washington of derailing commitments made by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump at their June summit in Singapore to work toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
“The US thinks that its oft-repeated ‘sanctions and pressure’ leads to ‘denuclearization.’ We cannot help laughing at such a foolish idea,” said the statement, released under the name of the director of the ministry’s Institute for American Studies.
“The improvement of relations and sanctions is incompatible,” it said.
Following a series of 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 to revive nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Seoul.
However, since the summit, the North has said that sanctions should be lifted before any progress could be made.
Ahead of his first summit with Moon in April, Kim said that the North should shift its focus to economic development, as the pyongjin policy had achieved a “great victory.”
He also said that the North would stop nuclear and long-range missile tests and close its nuclear testing ground. The North unilaterally dismantled the nuclear testing ground in May, but did not invite experts to observe and verify the event.
Friday’s statement marked the first time the North said it could potentially resume weapons tests and other development activities since Kim’s signaled a new state policy in April.
“If the US 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 pyongjin may appear again,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by its official acronym.
Moon has described inter-Korean engagement as crucial to resolving the nuclear standoff.
A large number of South Korean business leaders accompanied Moon in his September visit to Pyongyang, when he and Kim agreed to normalize operations at a jointly run factory park and resume South Korean visitors’ travel to the North when possible, voicing optimism that the international sanctions could end and allow such projects.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS