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Kim Myong-gil, roving ambassador for the North Korean Foreign Ministry, announces the end of working-level negotiations with the US in front of the North Korean Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 5, 2019. (photo pool)

Kwon Jong-gun, director general of the department of US Affairs at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, dismissed the possibility of a third North Korea-US summit being held. “Explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face to face with [the] US,” Kwon said. The North Korean official also responded to the South Korean government’s emphasis on the need for a third summit by saying that “inter-Korean relations are bound to go further bankrupt as [the South Koreans] only talk nonsense, unaware of the time.”

Kwon’s remarks appeared in a statement that was printed under his name by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on July 7. Kwon served as the North Korea’s deputy envoy to working-level talks with the US held in Stockholm, Sweden, in October 2019.

Referring to a statement made by Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui on July 4, Kwon said, “Our stand [sic] was as clear as day to be easily understood [. . .] Nevertheless, such nonsensical talks that there was no change in their efforts to mediate a DPRK [North Korea]-US summit are ceaselessly heard from the South.”

In the earlier statement, Choe said, “We do not feel any need to sit face to face with the US, as it does not consider the DPRK-US dialogue as [anything] more than a tool for grappling [with] its political crisis.”

Kwon obliquely referred to South Korean government officials — including South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has underlined the need for another North Korea-US summit — by talking about a “meddlesome man” who is “unaware of the time.”

“Some people make [a] self-centered interpretation of our first vice-foreign minister’s statement [as being] ‘a message urging the US to act’ and [as a request] ‘for more concession[s],’” Kwon said in the statement.

“[The] irony is that the South, which fails to manage its own business, came out to offer ‘a helping hand’ allegedly to solve the DPRK-US relations which are getting more and more complicated.”

Kwon went on to say that the time has come “for [the South Korean government] to stop meddling in [another’s] affairs but it seems there is no cure or prescription for its bad habit. Inter-Korean relations are bound to go further bankrupt as they only talk nonsense, unaware of the time.”

“We feel sorry to see it trying so hard to become the ‘mediator’ but it may try as much as it wants if it cherishes so strong [a] wish,” Kwon said. “Time will show whether its efforts will succeed or it will only suffer a loss and ridicule. Explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face to face with [the] US.”

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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