North Korea’s vice foreign minister on Saturday said that recent remarks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regarding “North Korea’s rogue behavior” will complicate peace negotiations between the two countries.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency quoted senior diplomat Choe Son Hui, who said, “Pompeo has gone so far in his language and it made the opening of the expected DPRK-U.S. working-level negotiations more difficult.”
Pompeo made the comments while speaking at the American Legion National Convention in Indiana on Tuesday.
“We recognized that North Korea’s rogue behavior could not be ignored,” Pompeo said.
Choe called Pompeo’s remarks “unreasonable and provocative,” adding that North Korea’s expectations to revive peace talks with the U.S. were deteriorating and the country would have to reevaluate “all measures.”
“The U.S. had better not put our patience to the test any longer with such remarks irritating us if it doesn’t want to have bitter regrets afterwards,” Choe said.
North Korea has been a frequent critic of Pompeo in recent weeks and called the top U.S. diplomat a “diehard toxin.”
Talks to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program came to a halt after the second meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in February failed to produce a meaningful breakthrough.
Trump and Kim met at the Korean Demilitarized Zone in June when Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to enter North Korea, and the pair agreed to restart peace negotiations.
But little progress has been made since the meeting, and North Korea has conducted numerous short-range missile tests in recent weeks in protest of the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.
