By Park Byong-su, staff reporter
Pyongyang reportedly sent a strongly worded message to Washington recently concerning its nuclear program.
North Korean officials said during a meeting with former US State Department official Joel Wit that the country would only consider denuclearization once Washington completely ended its hostile policies toward Pyongyang, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on August 7. Among the officials was Choe Son-hui, deputy chief of the North American affairs bureau in the North Korean foreign ministry.
Wit met unofficially with Choe and other officials in Singapore over a three-day period from July 31.
RFA quoted another person as hearing from Wit that Pyongyang had maintained it would only consider denuclearization if the U.S. answered all of its demands to date on replacing the armistice agreement with a peace treaty, dissolving the South Korea-U.S. alliance, and pulling its troops from the peninsula. The representatives also made it clear that Pyongyang was no longer interested in its Feb. 29 agreement with Washington, which was made in Beijing.
In February, the US and North Korea agreed that Pyongyang would suspend nuclear tests and uranium enrichment and allow visits by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in exchange for food aid. The US cancelled food aid after North Korea‘s rocket launch attempt in April.
The approach contrasts noticeably with the relatively flexible position coming from Pyongyang since the Kim Jong-un regime took office. It also appears connected with North Korea’s indication on July 20 that it was reconsidering its decision not to stage a nuclear test after the arrests of defectors allegedly ordered to destroy statues of Kim Il-sung.
“It looks like they determined that dialogue with Washington was unlikely to happen this year because of the election, and decided to ratchet up their demands as a way of making next year’s negotiations more favorable to them,” said a government official.
Meanwhile, Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation director Siegfried Hecker published a report in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Monday stating that North Korea had the capability to carry out an additional nuclear test within two weeks.
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