North Korea

North Korea spurned the top United States diplomat as not sufficiently ‘‘mature’’ and offered a hand to Moscow yesterday in back-to-back moves by Kim Jong Un to possibly reset the terms of his outreach with Washington.

The announcements came hours after North Korea announced it had tested a tactical guided weapon, its first public weapons test since the breakdown of a summit between US President Donald Trump and Kim in February.

North Korea further jabbed Washington by saying it no longer wanted to talk to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in negotiations over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. The statement, carried on state media, demanded Pompeo be replaced with someone ‘‘more careful and mature in communicating.’’

Then, in Moscow, the Kremlin said that Kim plans to meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia later this month. For Kim, the planned summit is an opportunity to expand his options and potential leverage with the US and China, the North’s longtime ally.

Taken all together, the steps by Kim suggest a push toward bolder initiatives by the North with US talks stalled after the collapse of the Hanoi, Vietnam, summit. However, it does not appear to signal that Kim wants to break off the dialogue, experts say.

‘‘Kim Jong Un does not intend to walk out of negotiations but shows that he can ‘seek a new way’ in the worst case,’’ said Lee Jong-seok, a former South Korean unification minister who is now at the Sejong Institute.

The apparent snub of Pompeo could also force a revised approach from Trump.

Pompeo’s main offence appears, in the North Koreans’ eyes, to be when he referred to Kim as a ‘‘tyrant’’ during a Senate hearing.

Nevertheless, North Korean is clearly frustrated with denuclearisation talks, analysts say, and by what it sees as unreasonable US demands to fully dismantle nuclear facilities before receiving relief from economic sanctions.

A statement quoting senior North Korean official Kwon Jong Gun, reported by the Korean Central News Agency and picked up by Reuters, said that whenever Pompeo ‘‘pokes his nose in, talks between the two countries go wrong without any results even from the point close to success.’’

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

In testimony to a Senate subcommittee last week, Pompeo was asked whether he would agree that Kim is a ‘‘tyrant.’’ ‘‘Sure. I’m sure I’ve said that,’’ Pompeo replied.

This is not the first time Pompeo has felt the heat of North Korean ire. He was accused of making ‘‘gangsterlike demands’’ in July, shortly after a visit to Pyongyang. But North Korea has been careful to avoid direct criticism of Trump, perhaps believing he is more likely to make concessions if he is flattered.

At the same time, North Korea is making long-anticipated overtures to Putin.

A short statement by the Kremlin said that Putin invited Kim and that the North Korean leader would meet him during the second half of this month. No date was announced.

Russian news reports suggested the meeting would take place in Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, as Putin makes his way to a summit in Beijing.

‘‘Kim Jong Un does not intend to walk out of negotiations but shows that he can seek a new way in the worst case.’’