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| US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo |
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.
North Koreaโs state news agency said Kwon Jong Gun, in charge of U.S. affairs at the foreign ministry, had warned that no one could predict what would happen if Washington did not abandon the โroot causeโ that compelled Pyongyang to develop nuclear weapons.
The statement came shortly after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test of a new tactical guided weapon, North Koreaโs first weapon test since a summit between him and Trump broke down in late February.
U.S. officials appeared to play down both developments, with acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan telling reporters at the Pentagon that while there had been a test, it was โnot a ballistic missile.โ
A spokeswoman for the State Department said it was aware of the report about Pompeo and added: โThe United States remains ready to engage North Korea in a constructive negotiation.โ
Despite the summit breakdown, North Korea had maintained a freeze in nuclear and ballistic missile testing in place since 2017,and Trump has repeatedly pointed to that as an important outcome from a year of engagement with Pyongyang.
Experts said the North Korean moves appeared aimed at dividing Trump from senior officials in the hope of exacting concessions, particularly relief from punishing sanctions.
โJust as this weekโs โtactical weaponโ test was a signal to warn Trump that his much-vaunted โfreezeโ is in jeopardy, the verbal attack on Pompeo is meant to encourage Trump to ignore his hardline advisers and make a deal with his โfriendโ Kim Jong Un,โ said Daniel Russel, the top U.S diplomat for East Asia until early in Trumpโs administration.
โAs long as the North Koreans believe they can flatter and dupe the U.S. president into making important concessions โฆ they will resist dealing with less gullible and more demanding subordinate U.S. officials.โ
KCNA gave no details on the weapon that was tested, but โtacticalโ implied a short-range weapon rather than the ballistic missiles seen as a threat to the United States.
Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at Seoulโs Kyungnam University, said it was likely a short-range cruise missile.
KCNA quoted Kwon as saying that the February summit in Hanoi, the second between the two leaders, showed talks could go wrong โwhenever Pompeo pokes his nose in.โ
โI am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled,โ Kwon said.
โMORE CAREFUL AND MATUREโ
โTherefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the United States, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but other person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us,โ Kwon added.
Joseph Yun, who served as U.S. special representative for North Korea until last year, said North Korea had long been dubious about Pompeo, seeing him as a hardline conservative skeptical of engagement with North Korea.
He said that while Kwon would have been acting on the highest authority, he was only a mid-level official, so his statements should be โtaken with a pinch of salt.โ
โPompeo is not frozen out as long as Trump wants him to do the job, and the North Koreans have to live with that,โ Yun added.
Kim warned last week that the Hanoi breakdown risked reviving tensions and said he was only interested in meeting Trump again if Washington showed more flexibility. He gave a year-end deadline for a change in attitude.
Trump has said he is open to another summit with Kim, but his national security adviser, John Bolton, told Bloomberg News on Wednesday there first needed to be โa real indication from North Korea that theyโve made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons.โ
Despite the summit failure, Kim and Trump have both stressed their good personal relationship, and Adam Mount of the Federation of American Scientists saw North Koreaโs recent statements as โits latest play .. to sideline U.S. officials to try to speak directly to the president.โ
โThe Trump administration has generally chosen to ignore Pyongyangโs public signals, including escalating signals of displeasure with the negotiations,โ he said. โSo far, North Korea has not walked away from the table, but they also have resisted pressure to make substantive progress on the nuclear question.โ
Kwon also said the two leaders were on good terms, even as he castigated Pompeo for โfabricatedโ stories as part of a โpublicity stunt.โ He did not elaborate.
Kwon said Pompeo had made โreckless remarks hurting the dignity of our supreme leadership,โ apparently referring to his agreeing to the characterisation of Kim as a โtyrantโ at a U.S. congressional hearing last week.
Kim oversaw the test of an unidentified tactical weapon in November.
He said last April he would stop nuclear tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles because North Koreaโs nuclear capabilities had been verified, but he has never promised to stop testing all weapons.
Kimโs visit to the testing site came after he visited the North Korean Air and Anti-aircraft Force on Tuesday.
REUTERS
