North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rejected the US offer to open a dialogue, calling it “a facade to hide their deceptions and hostile acts”. This was reported by the official North Korean daily Rodong Sinmun.
“Since the advent of the new US administration, the US military threat and their hostile policy towards us have not changed in the slightest, but they have become smarter,” Kim said speaking to the Supreme People’s Assembly.
Talks between Pyongyang and Washington have largely been at a standstill since the collapse of the Hanoi summit between Kim and then-President Donald Trump on reducing sanctions and what the North would be willing to give up in return. In recent months, the United States has repeatedly offered to meet with North Korean representatives anywhere, anytime, without preconditions, saying it will pursue denuclearization.
But Kim condemned the statements as “nothing more than a facade to mask their deceptions”. Under the new administration, “the US military threat and hostile policy against us have not changed at all, but they have become smarter,” he said in a lengthy speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the one-party parliament of the North. . Kim’s speech comes after the North this week tested what it said was a hypersonic gliding missile, and earlier this month it announced it had successfully launched a long-range cruise missile. The tests are the latest advances in its weapons development programs, which have seen it subject to multiple rounds of international sanctions. The UN Security Council will meet today on North Korea.
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