N. Korea’s foreign ministry bluntly criticizes Pompeo in recent statement

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (AFP/Yonhap News)

Message seems to emphasize Trump-Kim relationship while targeting Washington hardliners

The North Korean Foreign Ministry bluntly criticized US Secretary State of State Mike Pompeo as a policymaker with “inveterate antagonism” toward North Korea and suggested it may not be able to enter denuclearization talks while figures like him remain in place.

The message was seen as having the dual aim of stressing the relationship of trust and closeness between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while leaving Pompeo and other advisers voicing hardline messages on the North with less room to maneuver.

“Even though the supreme leaders devote their all for establishing new DPRK-US relations, it would be difficult to look forward to the improvement of the bilateral relations and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as long as the American politics are dominated by the policy-makers who have an inveterate antagonism towards the DPRK,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement published on June 26.

The statement took issue with remarks by Pompeo on June 21 stating that it was “important to remember” that over 80% of the North Korea economy is currently subject to sanctions, which the spokesperson called “sophistry.” The statement went on to say that Pompeo’s remarks were an “outright challenge” to the Singapore Joint Statement by North Korea and the US and represented the “most extreme hostile acts by the United States towards the DPRK.”

“We would not thirst for a lifting of sanctions,” the spokesperson said.

In the past, North Korea has used the Q&A format with Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reporters when criticizing hardliners in the US, including White House National Security Advisor John Bolton. Prominent examples include the denunciations of remarks by Bolton in KCNA Q&A format by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on May 27 and Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui on Apr. 20.

But the latest message in statement form represents a higher-pitched level of response, in what is being seen as a ground-clearing effort to curb the influence of Washington hardliners on North Korea before proceeding with full-scale working-level and high-level negotiations with the US.

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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