North Korea yesterday accused US President Joe Biden of pursuing a hostile policy, dismissing “spurious” US diplomacy and warning of a response.
Biden had said on Wednesday that his administration would deal with the threat posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear program “through diplomacy as well as stern deterrence.”
The White House on Friday said that the president was open to negotiations with North Korea on denuclearization following the completion of a policy review, but Pyongyang said Biden had made a “big blunder.”
Photo: Reuters
“His statement clearly reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] as it had been done by the US for over half a century,” Kwon Jung-gun, a North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, said in a statement released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“The US-claimed ‘diplomacy’ is a spurious signboard for covering up its hostile acts, and ‘deterrence’ touted by it is just a means for posing nuclear threats to the DPRK,” Kwon said. “Now that what the keynote of the US new DPRK policy has become clear [sic], we will be compelled to press for corresponding measures.”
The White House on Friday said that its goal remains “the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Washington would not “focus on achieving a grand bargain,” apparently referring to the kind of deal that former US president Donald Trump suggested was possible when he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Neither would the White House follow the more standoffish approach espoused by former US president Barack Obama, she added.
In a separate statement through the KCNA yesterday, North Korea also accused the US of insulting its leadership and COVID-19 measures, referring to a US Department of State news release issued on Wednesday.
Department spokesman Ned Price had issued a statement criticizing North Korea’s human rights abuses and draconian COVID-19 curbs, describing it as “one of the most repressive and totalitarian states in the world.”
“The ‘human rights issue’ touted by the US is a political trick designed to destroy the ideology and social system in the DPRK,” the North Korean foreign ministry said.
In a third statement issued yesterday, Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, lashed out at South Korea over a recent anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaign by a defector group.
Activist groups have long sent flyers critical of the North Korean leadership across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) dividing the peninsula.
The leaflets have infuriated Pyongyang, which last year demanded that Seoul take action and blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border.
The South Korean parliament rapidly passed a law criminalizing the leaflet campaigns in December last year, but a defector group said it flew 500,000 leaflets near the DMZ last week in defiance of the law.
Kim Yo-jong blamed South Korean authorities for not stopping them.
“We regard the maneuvers committed by the human wastes in the south as a serious provocation against our state and will look into corresponding action,” she said.
VITAL INDUSTRY: A war in the Strait would be a catastrophe, as Taiwan ‘lies at the heart’ of the world’s semiconductor industry, the magazine’s report said The government yesterday welcomed international attention on Taiwan’s security, saying that China is to blame for threatening regional stability, after a report by The Economist called Taiwan “the most dangerous place on Earth.” The report is featured on the cover of the magazine’s latest issue, which depicts the nation as the epicenter of a US-China rivalry. The cover shows Taiwan in a radar display with dots crossing the Taiwan Strait accompanied by a Chinese flag and dots nearing the east coast with a US flag. The US maintains a “one China” policy, while maintaining relations with Taiwan, but such “strategic ambiguity is breaking
HIGH-RISK GROUP: After the latest outbreak, family members of workers exposed to infection would from tomorrow be eligible for government-funded vaccines The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported four local COVID-19 cases: three family members of an infected worker at a quarantine hotel and a family member of an infected pilot. The new cases bring the number of infections involving China Airlines Ltd (中華航空) pilots and the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, where many of the airline’s crew members quarantined, to 24. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said three of them are the husband, son and daughter of case No. 1,129, a woman in her 60s, who works at the hotel. The son is in
NEXT STEP? The contract chipmaker said it would decide whether to add more plants based on operation efficiency, cost economics and demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to build several more chipmaking fabs in the US state of Arizona beyond the one already planned, three people familiar with the matter said. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, announced in May last year that it would build a US$12 billion fab in Arizona. The 12-inch wafer fab in Phoenix is expected to start mass production in 2024, the Investment Commission said in December, when it approved the plan. Three sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that up
VIRUS CURBS: Visiting people staying at healthcare and long-term care facilities in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan is banned until May 17, the CECC announced The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday banned visits to patients or residents at healthcare and long-term care facilities in three cities until May 17. It also reported six imported cases of COVID-19 and two cases with unclear infection sources. As the number of locally transmitted cases rises, some of whom have visited many places in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, enhanced disease prevention measures have to be implemented in the three cities, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. “Visiting people staying at healthcare and long-term care facilities in Taipei, New Taipei City and
RSS