North Korea has accused the US of using \u201cgangster-like\u201d tactics to push it towards nuclear disarmament after a fresh round of high-level talks.<\/p>\n
It branded the US attitude at the meeting as \u201cextremely troubling\u201d.<\/p>\n
The statement, by an unnamed foreign ministry official, gave a starkly different account from one provided by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just hours before.<\/p>\n
He had said progress was made during his two-day visit to Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
It is the first time he has visited North Korea since a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore.<\/p>\n
The leader\u2019s meeting ended with a promise from Mr Kim to work towards denuclearisation, but details on how this will be achieved remain thin.<\/p>\n
A key aim of Mr Pompeo during his visit was to firm up North Korea\u2019s commitment to disarmament.<\/p>\n
But the North Korean statement, carried by the official KCNA news agency, said the US had gone against the spirit of the summit by putting unilateral pressure on the country to abandon its nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had anticipated the US side would come with a constructive idea, thinking we would take something in return,\u201d the North Korean statement said, warning its \u201cresolve for denuclearisation\u2026 may falter\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US is fatally mistaken if it went to the extent of regarding that [North Korea] would be compelled to accept, out of its patience, demands reflecting its gangster-like mindset,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
\u2018Great deal of progress\u2019
\nAt the talks, Mr Pompeo did not meet with Mr Kim, but instead with Kim Yong-chol, who is seen as his right-hand man.<\/p>\n
In his assessment Mr Pompeo gave little away, but he said they had discussed at length a timeline for disarmament, including the destruction of a missile engine testing facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues, some places a great deal of progress, other places there\u2019s still more work to be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After the Singapore summit, which also saw the US offer \u201csecurity guarantees\u201d to North Korea and promise to end its military drills with South Korea, Mr Trump claimed that the North no longer posed a nuclear threat.<\/p>\n
However, the president has since renewed sanctions on North Korea, while US intelligence officials have said there is evidence North Korea continues to upgrade the infrastructure for its nuclear and missile programmes.<\/p>\n
A state department spokesperson said Mr Pompeo had been \u201cvery firm\u201d in focusing on denuclearisation, as well as on security assurances and another important US demand \u2013 the return of remains of US service personnel from the Korean War.<\/p>\n
As Saturday\u2019s meeting got underway Kim Yong-chol joked that Mr Pompeo may not have slept well during his overnight stay at a guesthouse in Pyongyang. Mr Pompeo said he \u201cslept just fine\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the US secretary of state will meet the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea has accused the US of using \u201cgangster-like\u201d tactics to push it towards nuclear disarmament after a fresh round of high-level talks. It branded the US attitude at the meeting as \u201cextremely troubling\u201d. The statement, by an unnamed foreign ministry official, gave a starkly different account from one provided by US Secretary of State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","post_format-post-format-image"],"yoast_head":"\n