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NORTH KOREA - SEOUL. North Korea sees little use in maintaining a personal relationship between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump if Washington sticks to hostile policies, state media reported on Friday on the two-year anniversary of the leaders’ first summit.
U.S. policies prove Washington remains a long-term threat to the North Korean state and its people, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.
The Singapore summit in June 2018 represented the first time a sitting American president met with a North Korean leader, but the statement that came out of the meeting was light on specifics, opting instead for four general commitments.
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A second summit in February 2019 in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, failed to reach a deal because of conflicts over U.S. calls for North Korea to completely give up its nuclear weapons, and North Korean demands for sanctions relief.
Ri said in retrospect the Trump administration appears to have been focusing on only scoring political points while seeking to isolate and suffocate North Korea, and threatening it with preemptive nuclear strikes and regime change.
Read Also: North Korea says it will sever hotlines with South Korea: KCNA
“Never again will we provide the U.S. chief executive with another package to be used for achievements without receiving any returns,” he said. “Nothing is more hypocritical than an empty promise.”
On Thursday North Korea criticized the United States for commenting on inter-Korean affairs, and said Washington should stay quiet if it wants the upcoming presidential election to go smoothly.
