North Korea warns no more talks until US backs off ‘impossible demands’

Negotiations between the United States and North Korea over the latter’s nuclear program will not resume until the US administration backs off from what Pyongyang has characterized as a unilateral demand that it disarm.

US President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un held summits in Singapore in June 2018 and in Hanoi in February of this year, but talks broke off after the two sides were unable to bridge an impasse between their respective positions.

On Friday, North Korea’s state-run Central News Agency published comments by an unnamed Foreign Ministry official who said that the talks have broke down due to “impossible” US demands.

“The underlying cause of setback of the DPRK-US summit talks in Hanoi is the arbitrary and dishonest position taken by the United States, insisting on a method which is totally impossible to get through,” the statement read, accusing the US of having “deliberately pushed the talks to a rupture by merely claiming the unilateral disarmament.”

If it sticks to its current demands, "the United States would not be able to move us even an inch,” the Korean official stressed, barring any future more flexible approaches from US officials, “the prospect for resolving the nuclear issue will be much gloomy.”

The North Korean remarks contrast with statements by Trump, who framed the dissolution of talks between the two nations as resulting from unreasonable Korean demands for significant sanctions reduction, in exchange for only a partial nuclear disarmament on its part.

In April, the North Korean leader gave Trump a deadline until the end of the 2019 calendar year to formulate a deal which would be acceptable to both sides.

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