NORTH KOREA LASHES KEY TRUMP OFFICIAL

NORTH Korea said yesterday it no longer wanted to deal with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and that he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.

The state’s official KCNA news agency quoted a senior foreign ministry official as warning that no one could predict the situation on the Korean peninsula if the US did not abandon the ‘root cause’ that compelled North Korea to develop nuclear weapons. The statement came after North Korea said leader Kim Jong-un had overseen the testing of a new tactical guided weapon, which had a ‘peculiar mode of guiding flight’ and ‘a powerful warhead’.

It was North Korea’s first weapon test since talks in Vietnam between Kim and US president Donald Trump broke down in February. Problems arose over conflicting demands by North Korea for sanctions relief and by the US for North Korea to ditch its nuclear programme.

KCNA gave no details on the weapon tested on Wednesday, but ‘tactical’ implied a shortrange weapon rather than a long-range ballistic missile.

Acting US defence secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon that it was ‘not a ballistic missile’, appearing to play down concerns.

KCNA quoted senior foreign ministry official Kwon Jong Gun, who is in charge of US affairs in North Korea, as saying the Vietnam summit showed that talks could go wrong ‘whenever Pompeo pokes his nose in’.

‘I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled,’ Mr Kwon said. ‘Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the United States, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but other person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us.’

A US State Department spokeswoman said it was aware of the report about Mr Pompeo.