A senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) put forward new conditions for talks with the United States Monday night, saying Washington should give up its hostile policy before coming to the negotiation table with Pyongyang.
"The U.S. always calls for negotiation for denuclearization, but there is no room to say about the negotiation before the complete and irrevocable withdrawal of its hostile policy toward the DPRK, the root cause of the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula," the official Korean Central News Agency early Tuesday morning quoted Kim Yong Chol, chairman of the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, as saying.
It will be possible to consult denuclearization only when confidence-building between the DPRK and the United States goes first and all the threats to the security and development of the DPRK are removed, he stressed.
Earlier on Monday, advisor to DPRK Foreign Ministry Kim Kye Gwan also issued a statement, saying they were no longer interested in such talks that bring nothing to them.
Denuclearization negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since February's second summit in Hanoi between the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump ended without a deal. The two leaders first met in Singapore in June 2018.
After an impromptu meeting with Kim at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom in June of this year, Trump said the United States and the DPRK would set up teams to resume the stalled denuclearization talks in two to three weeks.
