N. Korea warns new sanctions and US pressure could stop denuclearization progress forever

Posted on : 2018-12-17 17:05 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
KCNA publishes piece attacks US but maintains positive view of Trump
The headquarters of the central committee of the Korean Workers’ party in Pyongyang.
The headquarters of the central committee of the Korean Workers’ party in Pyongyang.

North Korea warned on Dec. 16 that attempts by the US to lead it to abandon its nuclear program by intensifying sanctions, pressure, and criticisms of its human rights issue could have the effect of permanently blocking the road to denuclearization.

The warning, which comes in the wake of similar messages on Dec. 13, is drawing attention to the new “offensive” from Pyongyang. In a recent commentary, North Korea declared that “time will show the foolishness of the US” and insisted, “Just like it is impossible to start a fire in water, improvement in the DPRK-US relations cannot go in tandem with sanctions and pressure.”

On Dec. 16, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a statement attributed to the policy research director of the Institute for American Studies in the North Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“If the high-ranking politicians within the US administration including the State Department had calculated that they could drive us into giving up nuclear weapons by way of increasing the anti-DPRK sanctions and pressure and human rights racket to an unprecedented level, which has nothing to do with confidence building, it will count as greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever – a result desired by no one,” the statement read.

“The US should realize before it is too late that ‘maximum pressure’ would not work against us and take a sincere approach to implementing the Singapore DPRK-US Joint Statement,” it continued.

In particular, the statement criticized US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials in the US administration for attempting to turn back the clock on North Korea-US relations, in contrast with President Donald Trump’s statements of commitment to improving them.

“[P]resident Trump avails himself of every possible occasion to state his willingness to improve DPRK-US relations,” the statement noted.

“Far from the statements of the president, the State Department is instead bent on bringing the DPRK-US relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire. I cannot help but throw doubt on the ulterior motive of the State Department,” it continued.

The message is even more noteworthy amid recent speculation that North Korea has committed itself to dealing with Trump personally.

The statement stressed, “During the past six months since the Singapore DPRK-US summit, the US high-ranking politicians including the secretary of state have almost every day slandered the DPRK out of sheer malice, and the State Department and the Treasury Department have taken anti-DPRK sanctions measures for as many as eight times.”

“Recently, the US is resorting to anti-DPRK human rights plot in such a way that it carries deliberate provocation by adding high-ranking government officials of the DPRK, a sovereign state, to its unilateral sanctions list, while taking issue with the non-existent ‘human rights issue,” it added.

KCNA previously published a Nov. 4 statement attributed to Institute for American Studies director Kwon Jong-gun, which stressed the incompatibility of improved relations and continued sanctions and suggested Pyongyang may reconsider its past “two-track” approach of simultaneous economic and nuclear development. The earlier message was pitched more strongly than the more recent one in terms of the content and the standing of its author.

Recent statement targets individual US officials, unlike previous ones

But a comparison of the recent statement with the Dec. 13 commentary on the US published by the KCNA suggests a different interpretation. While the previously published piece stressed there was “no doubt” that the US was the blame for the current impasse in the two sides’ talks, it did not explicitly single out White House aides, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Treasury, and politicians in Congress as the ones preventing implementation of the Singapore statement.

“How can the train of negotiation move when only the DPRK moves and the US stands still?” the piece asked at the time.

“The exit will be for the US to build up stairs with measures corresponding to the steps we have taken and walk up the stairs,” it continued, stressing that the US would need to make the first move in terms of bilateral negotiations.

Some experts have suggested Pyongyang’s recent criticisms directed at the US may be ideas viewed as the North establishing its position ahead of leader Kim Jong-un’s upcoming New Year’s address.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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