North Korea said Saturday it has no plans to resume nuclear negotiations with the United States in near future if Washington does not abandon what the communist country terms “hostile” polices toward Pyongyang.
North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui made the statement following former national security adviser John Bolton’s comments to reporters in New York earlier this week that President Donald Trump might hold another summit with the country’s leader Kim Jong Un as an “October surprise” shortly before the presidential election in November.
“Is it possible to hold dialogue or have any dealings with the U.S. which persists in the hostile policy toward the DPRK in disregard of the agreements already made at the past summit?” Choe said.
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, who has worked intensively to revive the negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, expressed optimism in a video conference with European leaders, also this week, that Trump and Kim would meet again before the election.
Trump and Kim have met three times since 2018 for discussing on denuclearization of North Korea, but negotiations stalled after their second summit in Vietnam in February 2019, in which the U.S. rejected North Korean demands for substantial sanctions relief as a condition to partially give up its nuclear ambitions.