OBAMA DISMISSES NORTH KOREA PROPOSAL

new york» A day after North Korea’s foreign minister told The Associated Press that his country is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea, President Barack Obama said Sunday that Washington isn’t taking the proposal seriously and Pyongyang would “have to do better than that.”

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, interviewed Saturday by The AP, also defended his country’s right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and warned that Pyongyang won’t be cowed by international sanctions. And for those waiting for the North’s regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don’t hold your breath.

“Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests,” he said in his first interview Saturday with a Western news organization.

Obama dismissed North Korea’s latest overture. “We don’t take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test,” Obama said.