North Korea suggests its willingness to denuclearise may falter, describing US demands as ‘rapacious, extremely troubling’
Many experts doubt Kim Jong-un’s willingness to denuclearise, as a military deterrent to US intervention has long been a strategic goal of his isolated, autocratic regime
North Korea said on Saturday its “firm, steadfast” resolve to give up its nuclear programmes may falter after the “gangster-like” United States demanded unilateral denuclearisation during two days of talks in Pyongyang, state media said.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said the result of talks with the delegation headed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was “extremely troubling” and condemned the “rapacious demands”, accusing the US of insisting on complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation.
“The US attitude and positions at the high-level talks on Friday and Saturday were extremely regrettable,” the North’s foreign ministry said in a statement, Yonhap reported.
“The US side came up only with its unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearisation,” the statement said, adding that the US call for “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation,” or CVID, runs “counter to the spirit of the Singapore summit”.
The “fastest way” to achieve a nuclear-free Korean peninsula was through a phased approach under which both sides took steps at the same time, KCNA said in a statement citing an unnamed foreign ministry spokesperson.
“We had anticipated the US side would come with a constructive idea, thinking we would take something in return,” the North Korean spokesperson said.