North Korea blasts US’ ‘alarming’ impatience

SINGAPORE — North Korea on Saturday said the United States was acting with “alarming” impatience on the issue of denuclearization, after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed the need to maintain full sanctions pressure on Pyongyang.

The comments at a forum here came after a United Nations report showed Pyongyang was continuing with nuclear and missile programs and evading sanctions through ship-to-ship oil transfers.

At talks with President Donald Trump in June, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un signed up to a vague commitment to “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

At the ASEAN Regional Forum, North Korea Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said: “What is alarming, however, is the insistent moves manifested within the US to go back to the old, far from its leader’s intention.”

Since the June agreement, Pyongyang had taken “goodwill measures,” including a halt on nuclear and missile tests and “dismantling a nuclear test ground,” he said, according to a statement.

“However, the United States, instead of responding to these measures, is raising its voice louder for maintaining the sanctions against the DPRK,” he said, using the initials of the North’s official name.

“As long as the US does not show in practice its strong will to remove our concerns, there will be no case whereby we will move forward first unilaterally. —