NKorea Calls for Pompeo to be Dropped from Talks
Thursday, 18 April 2019 04:00 PM
North Korea said on Thursday it no longer wanted to deal with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.
The North's official KCNA news agency quoted senior foreign ministry official Kwon Jong Gun as warning that no one could predict the situation on the Korean peninsula if the United States did not abandon the "root cause" that compelled North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.
The statement came shortly after North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un had overseen the testing of a new tactical guided weapon, which KCNA said had a "peculiar mode of guiding flight" and "a powerful warhead."
It was the North's first weapon test since talks in Vietnam between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in late February broke down over conflicting demands by North Korea for sanctions relief and by the United States for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.
Still, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon that it was "not a ballistic missile," appearing to play down concerns. At the same time, he noted: "There was a test."
KCNA gave no details on the weapon that was tested on Wednesday, but "tactical" implied a short-range weapon rather than the long-range ballistic missiles that have been seen as a threat to the United States.
KCNA quoted Kwon, who is in charge of U.S. affairs, as saying the Vietnam summit, the second between the two leaders, showed that talks could go wrong "whenever Pompeo pokes his nose in."
"I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled," Kwon said.
"Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialog with the United States, I wish our dialog counterpart would be not Pompeo but other person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us."
A spokeswoman for the State Department said it was aware of the report about Pompeo and added: "The United States remains ready to engage North Korea in a constructive negotiation."
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