N.Korea again not willing to restart US nuclear talks

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is unwilling to talk face to face with the US and urged South Korea to stay away from meddling in Pyongyang’s affairs, a senior DPRK diplomat reaffirmed on Tuesday.

“Explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face to face with the US,” Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs of the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Kwon was reaffirming a statement issued earlier by Choe Son-hui, First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of DPRK, who said last weekend that the DPRK had no interest in holding another DPRK-US summit before the US election in November, which was proposed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in last Wednesday.

Kwon also asked the South Korean leader not to become a “meddlesome man who had again indicated his intention to arbitrate between the DPRK and the US regardless of time.”

The South Korean government seems “to have a bad ear or are guided by the habit of always talking in their own favor” as there was no change in their efforts to mediate a DPRK-US summit, Kwon added in a statement.

The statement was issued when US special envoy for the DPRK Stephen Biegun was set to arrive in Seoul on Tuesday for talks with his South Korean counterpart amid stalled nuclear talks on the Korean peninsula. Biegun said recently that the proposed DPRK-US summit was unlikely to happen before the US presidential election in November, citing COVID-19 as a reason.