World
North Korea Threatens Washington To Stall Denuclearization Efforts
North Korea has called out the U.S. to stop acting in bad faith
It seems North Korea is not happy with Washington for pushing full sanctions pressure against Pyongyang. North Korea reportedly issued a forceful statement on Thursday threatening to stall the denuclearization of its missile program if the U.S. continues to enforce and encourage international sanctions against the North over its nuclear weapons programme.
The statement released by the North Korean foreign ministry said that progress on denuclearization promises established by US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Singapore summit in June could not be expected if Washington continues to follow an outdated acting script.
The statement claims that despite the fact that North Korea had stopped testing missiles, conducting nuclear tests and has dismantled “the nuclear test ground,” the United States is still insisting on “denuclearization first.”
Notably, during the Singapore summit, the North’s leader Kim Jong Un signed up to a vague commitment to work toward a full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, far from Washington’s longstanding demand for the complete dismantling of Pyongyang’s atomic arsenal.
North Korea’s statement has called out the US to reciprocate its “goodwill measures” by easing sanctions and stopping demands that the North denuclearise first.
It accused the US of “insulting the dialogue partner and throwing cold water over our sincere efforts for building confidence which can be seen as a precondition for implementing” the agreement signed by the two leaders.
The statement came after Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said this week that the administration does not feel Pyongyang is living up to its commitments.
“We’re waiting for the North Koreans to begin the process of denuclearization, which they committed to in Singapore and which they’ve not yet done,” Bolton told CNN.
Recently, a confidential UN report claimed that Pyongyang was continuing with its nuclear and missile programmes and evading sanctions by still resorting to the illegal trade of various commodities.
