Pyongyang and Tehran team up to bash US

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told North Korea’s foreign minister that the United States could not be trusted, Tehran’s state media said, as the United States seeks a deal to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes.

North Korea for its part denounced the US for its “outdated acting script” in pressuring Pyongyang with continued sanctions, but said it was still prepared to meet its obligations after a historic summit in Singapore in June.

Iran dismissed a last-minute offer from Washington for talks this week, saying it could not negotiate after the Trump government reneged on a 2015 deal to lift sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.

North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, visited Iran as the US reintroduced sanctions against Tehran.

“The US administration performance in these years has led the country to be considered untrustworthy and unreliable around the world, which does not meet any of its obligations,” Mr Rouhani told Mr Ri on Wednesday.

“In the current situation, friendly countries should develop their relations and co-operation in [the] international community,” he said.

Mr Ri travelled to Tehran after attending a security forum in Singapore, where he and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sparred over an agreement made at June’s summit between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The two sides vowed to work towards North Korea’s denuclearisation at the summit, but have since struggled to reach a deal, with the US insisting sanctions pressure must be maintained.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it had stopped testing missiles and conducting nuclear tests and yet the US still had insisted on “denuclearisation first”.

North Korea nevertheless returned the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War, it said.

“We hoped that these goodwill measures would contribute to breaking down the high barrier of mistrust existing between the DPRK and the US and to establishing mutual trust,” the ministry said. “However, the US responded to our expectation by inciting international sanctions and pressure against the DPRK.”

The US was “attempting to invent a pretext for increased sanctions against the DPRK by mobilising all their servile mouthpieces and intelligence institutions to fabricate all kinds of falsehoods.

“We remain unchanged in our will to uphold the intentions of the top leaders of the DPRK and the US and to build trust and implement in good faith the DPRK-US joint statement step by step. The US should ... respond to our sincere efforts in a corresponding manner.”

Mr Ri told Mr Rouhani that “North Korea’s strategic policy is to deepen relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran and confront unilateralism”.