DPRK: US sanctions move could block denuclearization

THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea yesterday condemned the US administration for stepping up sanctions and pressure on the country, warning of a return to “exchanges of fire” and that disarming Pyongyang could be blocked forever.

DPRK’s stinging response came after the United States said last Monday it had introduced sanctions on three DPRK officials, including a top aide to DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, for alleged human rights abuses.

Denuclearizing DPRK has made little progress since Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump met in Singapore in June in a historic summit. The two sides have yet to reschedule working-level talks between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior DPRK official Kim Yong Chol, which were canceled abruptly last month.

While crediting Trump for his “willingness” to improve relations with DPRK, Pyongyang accused the US State Department of being “bent on bringing the DPRK-US relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire.”

DPRK’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Washington had taken “sanctions measures for as many as eight times against the companies, individuals and ships of not only the DPRK but also Russia, China and other countries.”

If the US administration believed that heightened sanctions and pressure would force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons, “it will count as (its) greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever — a result desired by no one,” said the statement, released under the name of the policy research director of the Institute for American Studies.