North Korea sends a message with destruction of joint liaison office
The building had huge symbolic value and was aimed at facilitating ties between North and South Korea; senior foreign affairs correspondent Greg Palkot reports.
An American envoy landed in South Korea on Tuesday for discussions on stalled nuclear diplomacy hours after the North issued a statement vowing it has “no intention to sit face to face with the U.S.”
Deputy Secretary of State and Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun is set to meet with South Korean and Japanese officials over the next few days to discuss issues including “the final, fully verified denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,” the State Department says.
Yet, hours before Biegun arrived at a U.S. air base near Seoul, North Korea issued a statement suggesting it wouldn’t budge on the topic.
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In this 2019 photo, Trump meets with Kim Jong Un at the North Korean side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in Demilitarized Zone. (AP)
“It is just the time for [South Korea] to stop meddling in others’ affairs but it seems there is no cure or prescription for its bad habit,” said Kwon Jong Gun, director-general for U.S. affairs at North Korea’s foreign ministry.
“Explicitly speaking once again, we have no intention to sit face to face with the U.S.,” he added.
Kwon’s statement came days after North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Sun Hui, whom Biegun has described as his potential counterpart when talks resume, insisted the North won't resume negotiations unless Washington discards what it describes as “hostile” policies. She criticized the Trump administration for considering diplomacy with the North as “nothing more than a tool for grappling its political crisis.”
Without naming him outright, Kwon also took a jab at South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who in a video conference with European leaders last week expressed hope that President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would meet again before the U.S. elections in November.
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President Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in 2018. (AP)
"[Choe’s] statement also mentioned the meddlesome man who had again indicated his intention to arbitrate between the DPRK and the U.S.,” Kwon said.
Trump and Kim have met three times since embarking on high-stakes nuclear diplomacy in 2018. But negotiations have faltered since their second summit in February last year in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability.
Amid the stalemate in talks, North Korea has repeatedly said in recent months that it would no longer give Trump the gift of high-profile meetings he could boast of as foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return.
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North Korea has also been dialing up the pressure on the South, cutting off virtually all cooperation and blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office in its territory last month, following months of frustration over Seoul’s unwillingness to defy U.S.-led sanctions and restart joint economic projects that would help the North's broken economy.
Biegun last week said there is still time for both sides to re-engage and “make substantial progress”, although an in-person summit would be difficult to arrange because of the threat of the coronavirus, according to Reuters.
Fox News’ Rich Edson, Ben Evansky, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.