North Korea wants sanctions lifted for denuclearisation

UNITED NATIONS: North Korea’s foreign minister yesterday told the United Nations continued sanctions were deepening its mistrust in the United States and there was no way the country would give up its nuclear weapons unilaterally under such circumstances.

Ri Yongho told the world body’s annual General Assembly that North Korea had taken ‘‘significant goodwill measures’’ in the past year, such as stopping nuclear and missiles tests, dismantling the nuclear test site, and pledging not to proliferate nuclear weapons and nuclear technology.

‘‘However, we do not see any corresponding response from the US,’’ he said.

‘‘Without any trust in the US there will be no confidence in our national security and under such circumstances there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first.’’

While Ri reprised familiar North Korean complaints about Washington’s resistance to a ‘‘phased’’ approach to denuclearisation under which North Korea would be rewarded as it took gradual steps, his statement appeared significant in that it did not reject unilateral denuclearisation out of hand as Pyongyang has done in the past. North Korea has sought a formal end to the 195053 Korea War, but the US has said Pyongyang must give up its nuclear weapons first. Washington has resisted calls to relax international sanctions on North Korea. ‘‘The US insists on the ‘denuclearisationfirst’ and increases the level of pressure by sanctions to achieve their purpose in a coercive manner, and even objecting to the ‘declaration of the end of war,’’’ Ri said.