Kim says US responsible for nuclear talks impasse

PYONGYANG－Kim Jong-un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, has blamed the United States for the impasse in bilateral nuclear talks, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Wednesday.

At the Fifth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea on Tuesday, Kim said the more the US stalls for time and hesitates in the settlement of the DPRK-US relations, the deeper the nuclear talks will fall into an impasse.

In his report, Kim blamed Washington for the current difficulties facing Pyongyang, saying the US "applied the most brutal and inhuman sanctions against (the country) and posed a persistent nuclear threat" to the DPRK over the past seven decades, and that the current situation on the Korean Peninsula "is getting more dangerous and reaching a serious phase".

Noting that Pyongyang had taken measures to build confidence in bilateral relations, including halting nuclear tests and shutting down a test ground, Kim rebuked Washington for conducting dozens of joint military drills and threatening Pyongyang with a shipment of ultramodern warfare equipment into the Republic of Korea.

"There is no ground for us to get unilaterally bound to the commitment any longer," Kim said, adding that "the world will witness a new strategic weapon to be possessed by the DPRK in the near future", without giving details of the weapon.

"If the US persists in its hostile policy toward the DPRK, there will never be denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, and the DPRK will steadily develop necessary and prerequisite strategic weapons for the security of the state, until the US rolls back its hostile policy toward the DPRK and a lasting and durable peacekeeping mechanism is built," he said.

Kim said there were no grounds for Pyongyang to be bound any longer by a self-declared moratorium on testing nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, according to a statement on the results of the policy meeting carried by KCNA.

In his latest comments on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he had a good relationship with Kim and thought Kim would keep his word. "He likes me, I like him. We get along. He's representing his country, I'm representing my country. We have to do what we have to do," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Tension had been rising ahead of the year-end as Pyongyang conducted a series of weapons tests and waged a war of words with Trump.

The nuclear talks have made little headway despite three meetings between Kim and Trump since 2018. Working-level talks in Stockholm, Sweden, in October broke down, with a DPRK chief negotiator accusing US officials of sticking to their old stance.

Xinhua - Agencies