North Korea is ‘running out of patience’ with US and warns of ‘exchange of fire at any moment’
NORTH Korea says it's running out of patience with the United States over “hostile” policies and unilateral disarmament demands.
The hermit kingdom warned that good terms between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un personally wouldn't be enough to prevent a nuclear exchange "at any moment".
In a statement published by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol said there has been no substantial progress in relations.
He added that despite warm ties between Kim and The Donald the persisting hostility means "there could be the exchange of fire at any moment."
Kim Yong Chol said the Trump administration would be "seriously mistaken" if it ignores an end-of-year deadline set by Kim Jong Un to propose terms for a deal to salvage nuclear negotiations.
Veteran diplomat Kim Kye Gwan criticised U.S. officials for maintaining "Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice" and urged the United States to act "wisely" through the end of the year on Thursday.
Kim Yong Chol stressed that the United States would fail if it tries to use the "close personal relations" between Trump and Kim for delaying tactics.
He said the United States was getting on North Korea's nerves by demanding its "final and fully verified denuclearisation" while pushing other U.N. countries to strengthen sanctions.
He said Washington has been attempting to "isolate and stifle" North Korea in a "more crafty and vicious way than before," instead of heeding Kim Jong Un's call to change its approach.
Those talks have faltered after the collapse of a February summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, where the U.S. rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for a piecemeal deal toward partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.
The communist country flexed its muscles with a flurry of short-range missile tests while Kim said he would "wait with patience until the end of the year for the United States to come up with a courageous decision."
Washington and Pyongyang resumed working-level discussion in Sweden earlier this month, but the meeting broke down with the North Koreans calling the talks "sickening".
Following the breakdown of the Hanoi summit, South Korean officials have speculated that the North side-lined Kim Yong Chol, the top negotiator and former military intelligence chief.
He had a reputation as a hard-liner, so they let Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui take the lead.
Kim Jong Un has signed vague statements calling for the "complete denuclearisation" of the peninsula in his meetings with Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in since last year.
But the North's hardball attitude in past months has raised doubts on whether Kim would ever voluntarily give away his nukes he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival.
North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearisation that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.