N Korea warns it won’t negotiate if US is hostile

NORTH KOREA warned the United States that it will never put its nuclear weapons programme on the negotiating table as long as the Trump administration keeps up its “hostile policy and nuclear threat”.

The warning came from North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador, Kim In Ryong, in the transcript of his conversation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday. The transcript was sent to the Associated Press on Thursday by North Korea’s UN Mission.

Guterres’ remarks were not included, but the UN chief told reporters on Wednesday that he had spoken to the North Koreans and the five other parties in talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programme that have been stalled since 2009.

The secretary-general warned that tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest level in decades and said it is important now “to dial down the rhetoric and to dial up diplomacy”.

Ambassador Kim repeated to the secretary-general the decision by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to hold off on launching missiles into waters near the US territory of Guam.

MILITARY CONFRONTATION

The North Korean leader said that “the US imperialists put their own necks into the noose through their reckless military confrontation racket, adding that he would watch a little longer the conduct of the foolish and stupid Yankees,” the ambassador told Guterres.

Ambassador Kim reiterated his leader’s demand that the US immediately stop its “arrogant provocation” and its “extremely dangerous actions around the Korean Peninsula,” including deploying “huge nuclear strategic equipment”.

“In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first and show it in action,” the ambassador said.