U.S. slams North Korea’s rights record
SEOUL, South Korea — America’s top diplomat on Wednesday criticized North Korea’s human-rights record and reiterated a vow to strip the country of its nuclear program, a day after Pyongyang warned Washington to “refrain from causing a stink” amid deadlocked nuclear negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in South Korea with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier Wednesday as part of their regional tour aimed at boosting America’s Asian alliances to better deal with growing challenges from China and North Korea.
“The authoritarian regime in North Korea continues to commit systematic and widespread abuses against its own people,” Blinken said at the start of his meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong.
Blinken called North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs “a threat to the region and to the world.” He said the United States will work with South Korea, Japan and other allies to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea.
How to get North Korea to return to talks was sure to be a major focus of meetings between Blinken and Austin and South Korean officials.
When Austin separately met his South Korean counterpart Suh Wook on Wednesday, he said their countries’ alliance “has never been more important” given “the unprecedented challenges posed by” North Korea and China.
The two top U.S. officials are to hold a joint “two plus two” meeting with Chung and Suh today in the first such contact between the two countries in five years.
U.S.-led diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear program has been in limbo since a February 2019 summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un collapsed over disputes on U.S.led
sanctions. Kim has since threatened to enlarge his nuclear arsenal in protest of what he called U.S. hostility.
North Korea said today that it will ignore U.S. offers for talks unless it withdraws its hostile policy.
“What has been heard from the U.S. since the emergence of the new regime is only a lunatic theory of ‘threat from North Korea’ and groundless rhetoric about ‘complete denuclearization,’” said Choe Son Hui, the first foreign minister, calling the offer for talks a “time-delaying trick.”
He reiterated North Korea’s position that no “dialogue of any kind” can be possible unless the U.S. rolls back its hostility. “Therefore we will disregard such an at tempt of the U.S. in the future too.”
Earlier this week, the pow erful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threat ened to abandon rapproche ment with South Korea and warned the United States to “refrain from causing a stink,” while criticizing regular U.S. South Korean military drills that her government views as an invasion rehearsal.
Blinken and Austin also joined forces with Japanese officials to criticize China’s “coercion and aggression” and reaffirm their commit ment to ridding North Korea of all its nuclear weapons.
China said Wednesday that the U.S.-Japan statemen “maliciously attacked” its foreign policy and seriously interfered in China’s inter nal affairs. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China was “strongly dis satisfied and resolutely op posed” to the statement.
While the United States won’t likely give up its long term commitment to denu clearizing North Korea, roll ing back the country’s nuclear capabilities to zero is not a re alistic near-term diplomatic goal, he said.