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.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland yesterday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy. The US delegation has begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), Xinhua News Agency said. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks was not made public. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim, but there is
The number of births in Taiwan fell to an all-time monthly low last month, while the population declined for the 16th consecutive month, Ministry of the Interior data released on Friday showed. The number of newborns totaled 8,684, which is 704 births fewer than in March and the lowest monthly figure on record, the ministry said. That is equivalent to roughly one baby born every five minutes and an annual crude birthrate of 4.52 per 1,000 people, the ministry added. Meanwhile, 17,205 deaths were recorded, resulting in a natural population decrease of 8,521, the data showed. More people are also leaving Taiwan, with net
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed