North Korea: Four months into the stalled denuclearisation talks between the United States and North Korea following the failed Hanoi summit, Pyongyang has once again urged Washington to reflect upon the “correct strategic choice” to resume talks before its patience wears down, state media reported.
In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday, a spokesperson for North Korea’s foreign ministry has urged the US to “drop its current way of calculation” to keep alive the agreement they reached during their first summit in June last year.
“Whether the June 12 DPRK-US Joint Statement will remain effective or turn out to be a mere blank sheet of paper will now be determined by how the US would respond to our fair and reasonable stand,” Yonhap news agency quoted the spokesperson, as saying.
“The US should duly look back on the past one year and cogitate about which will be a correct strategic choice before it is too late. The US would be well-advised to change its current method of calculation and respond to our request as soon as possible. There is a limit to our patience,” he added.
A similar call by North Korea was made in April when leader Kim Jong-Un had said that he would wait for Washington’s “courageous decision” until the end of this year.
Talks between the two countries hit a roadblock after the second summit in Vietnam ended abruptly with no joint statement being released. The two sides reportedly failed to resolve their differences on sanctions waivers.
North Korea has since launched multiple projectiles as a sign of their apparent frustration regarding the stalled talks and continuing sanctions.
Tensions between the two countries briefly heightened recently after the US seized one of its cargo ships on the suspicion of shipping coal and other goods in violation of global sanctions on the regime.
