North Korea Firing ’Warning Shots’ At U.S.
By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – North Korea has fired diplomatic warning shots at the United States saying their relationship “shifted into despair” and suggesting it may launch nuclear-capable missiles.
Pyongyang announcement came on the 2nd anniversary of what was supposed to be a breakthrough summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.
But North Korea’s leadership said that since their talks in Singapore, ties with Washington “shifted into despair,” and Pyongyang warned that it was building up a “more reliable force to cope with the long-term military threats from the U.S.”
It underscored mounting frustration within North Korea’s autocratic leadership about the U.S. refusal to lift sanctions as long as the troubled nation continues its nuclear weapons program.
In a statement carried by state-run Korean Central News Agency, Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said the optimism generated by the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader was now gone.
’EMPTY PROMISE’
Pyongyang, he said, waited two years for Trump to make good on his “empty promise.”
Following the Singapore summit on June 12, 2018, Kim “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” while Trump pledged to provide security guarantees to North Korea.
The two sides also agreed to establish new relations, build a lasting and stable peace regime on the peninsula and repatriate remains of American prisoners killed during the 1950-53 Korean War.
Ri claimed that unlike Trump, Kim lived up to his end of the bargain. He said that included Kim’s “epoch-making resolve” by taking steps such as the “total shutdown of the northern nuclear test site [and] repatriation of scores of American POW/MIA remains.”
North Korea shut down its Punggye-ri nuclear test site and demolished its tunnels ahead of the Kim-Trump summit in May 2018. But international inspectors caution that they were never allowed to verify whether the facility had been completely destroyed.
’CLOSING COMMUNICATION’
The latest standoff comes days after North Korea said it was cutting off all communication channels with South Korea.
That was in response to North Korean dissidents in South Korea who managed to send balloons carrying pro-democracy messages across the border into North Korea.
Experts said the move could also signal Pyongyang’s frustration over Seoul’s failure to revive lucrative inter-Korean economic projects and persuade the United States to ease sanctions.
Amid the diplomatic and perhaps military wrangling, North Korea’s mainly impoverished population faced another day of hardship.
And at least hundreds of thousands of people, including many Christians, face torture and even death in notorious prison camps for opposing the non-Christian ideology of North Korea’s leader, rights investigators said.
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