Pyongyang, April 23 (RHC)-- North Korea has lambasted as “nonsense” remarks by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has called on Pyongyang to show seriousness in giving up its nuclear weapons. North Korea warns that “nothing good” will come of such comments.
Bolton, in a recent interview with Bloomberg News, said there was the need for a “real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons.”
In response, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said Bolton “showed his true colors by saying such nonsense,” adding that his comments had “no charm in it and he looks dim-sighted to me.”
“Bolton’s remarks make me wonder whether they sprang out of the lack of comprehension of the intentions of the top leaders of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and the U.S. or whether he was just trying to talk with a certain sense of humor for his part, with its own deviation,” the North Korean official was further quoted by the official KCNA news agency as saying at a press conference.
Choe also cautioned that there would be no good if Washington continued “to throw away such remarks devoid of discretion and reason.”
Bolton is the second high-ranking U.S. politician to be criticized by Pyongyang in recent days, after it branded Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “reckless," demanding his removal from stalled nuclear negotiations over the North's nuclear program.
Back in late February, US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader reached an impasse at their face-to-face denuclearization talks in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, with Washington demanding full disarmament and Pyongyang demanding economic incentives through partial lifting harsh sanctions.
The second summit in fact collapsed when the U.S. president abruptly walked away from the talks without reaching a deal or even issuing a final statement. Trump claimed that he quit the talks because Kim demanded to lift all economic sanctions as a prerequisite to denuclearization. However, Pyongyang quickly responded that it had never asked for the removal of all sanctions, but only the partial removal.
The two leaders met at a historic summit for the first time in June last year in Singapore, where they agreed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Subsequent diplomacy between the two sides, however, made little progress, mainly because Washington refused to lift its crippling sanctions.
The North Korean leader says the U.S. has until the end of this year to change its stance towards Pyongyang or face the risk of reviving tensions between the two sides. The U.S. has refused to offer any sanctions relief in return for several unilateral steps already taken by North Korea. Pyongyang, on the other hand, has suspended its missile and nuclear testing, demolished at least one nuclear test site, and agreed to allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility.
The White House has insisted that sanctions on North Korea must remain in place until it completely and irreversibly dismantles its nuclear program. Earlier this month, Kim said that the U.S. had raised the risk of returning to past tensions after the collapse of the Hanoi summit, stressing that yet another meeting between the two leaders was only possible if Washington came with the right attitude.
