(Seoul) Pyongyang “does not feel the need” to resume talks with Washington, said a senior North Korean diplomat, a few days after the call by Seoul for a new summit to improve relations with its neighbor to the north.
Posted on July 5 2020 at 10 h 09
France Media Agency
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who played a crucial role in promoting detente with the North, called on 30 June at a new summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, saying that Seoul would do “everything it can” to get there.
But Pyongyang “does not feel the need to sit facing the United States”, replied the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of North Korea, Choe Son Hui, in a press release published by the northern agency -Korean KCNA.
“The United States is wrong if it considers that things like negotiations are still working on us,” she added.
Washington “considers the dialog between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) only as an instrument in its political crisis,” she added, using the official name of Korea. North.
The North has already drawn up a “detailed calendar of its strategy” to deal with the “long-term threat” from Washington, insisted in the press release the high-ranking diplomat.
The negotiations on the North Korean denuclearization have stalled since the fiasco of the second summit between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump, in February 924 in Hanoi.
PHOTO SAUL LOEB, ARCHIVES FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, in February 2019
According to media reports, Stephen Biegun, the number two in American diplomacy, is expected next week in Seoul to discuss talks with the North.
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not confirmed this visit, however.
At the end of June, the United States, through the voice of Mr. Biegun, who is also the American emissary for North Korea, had considered a summit or even a simple virtual contact, between Mr. Trump and Kim by the presidential election on November 3.
He had however assured that the door remained “open to diplomacy”.
The North Korean regime multiplied verbal attacks against Seoul in June, criticizing in particular the fact that North Korean dissidents based in the South send propaganda leaflets to the North using balloons carried by the wind.