North Korea rang in the U.S. Independence Day on Saturday by saying that the Trump administration remains in its doghouse and that it has no interest in picking up nuclear negotiations.
“We do not feel any need to sit face to face with the U.S.,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Choe reiterated the hermit nation’s silent-treatment approach ahead of a planned trip for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun to visit South Korea.
North Korea has taken a militant posture in the past month, lashing out at the South and blowing up a de facto embassy near the two countries’ border.
The North has also aired grievances with the U.S., and analysts say the rogue state may be timing its bombastic moves with the upcoming presidential election and the recent period of domestic unrest in America.
President Trump has met three times with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un during his presidency, but the high-wattage summits have not translated into major sanctions relief for North Korea or the denuclearization of the country.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said this week that Trump and Kim should meet once more before the November election.
In her statement, Choe said the U.S. doesn’t consider its relationship with North Korea as anything “more than a tool for grappling with its political crisis.”
“The U.S. is mistaken if it thinks things like negotiations would still work on us,” she said in the statement.
___
© 2020 New York Daily News
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
