North Korea warns US: don’t mistake our good mood for ‘weakness’ ahead of talks
The US should not mistake ‘the peace-loving intention of the DPRK [North Korea] as a sign of weakness and [continue] to pursue its pressure and military threats,’ a North Korean spokesman said
North Korea warned the United States on Sunday not to misread peace overtures as a sign of weakness, accusing the Trump administration of deliberately provoking Pyongyang with tough talk and a show of military strength.
“It would not be conducive to addressing the issue if the US miscalculates the peace-loving intention of the DPRK [North Korea] as a sign of ‘weakness’ and continues to pursue its pressure and military threats,” a spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry told the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Trump and Kim likely to meet in Singapore for historic talks in June
The criticism came weeks before a much-anticipated summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It also came after last month’s historic meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
At that meeting, Kim pledged to work toward denuclearising the peninsula and to dismantle his nuclear missile testing site.
He also agreed to move his nation’s clocks forward by 30 minutes to correspond to South Korea’s time zone, an action that took place Saturday.
Despite the gains, the North Korean spokesman on Sunday accused the Trump administration of misleading the public by claiming Pyongyang is motivated by fear of US military strength and concerns about aggressive economic sanctions put in place because of the North’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Movement of US military assets into the region and talk of human rights violations also have hurt the process, the spokesman said.