North Korea says it has no intention to talk with South Korea
In this file photo taken on June 30, 2019, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands during a meeting on the south side of the Military Demarcation Line that divides North and South Korea. AFP
North Korea said Friday that Pyongyang has no intention to talk with South Korea again, calling it a "senseless" hope to expect talks to be resumed when Seoul's joint military exercise with the United States is over.
The remarks were made by a spokesperson of the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, as North Korea fired two more unidentified projectiles into the East Sea, the sixth such launch in about three weeks, the same day.
"The South Korean authorities are snooping about to fish in troubled waters in the future DPRK-U.S. dialogue, dreaming that the phase of dialogue would naturally arrive after the joint military exercises just as the natural change of the time of the year. He had better drop that senseless lingering attachment," the statement said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
DPRK is the abbreviation for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"They can clearly see what we feel now, i.e. we have nothing to talk any more with the South Korean authorities nor have any idea to sit with them again," it added.
North Korea has lambasted South Korea for holding a joint military exercise with the U.S., which started earlier this month, claiming it is a rehearsal for their invasion of the North.
The North has recently said that inter-Korean dialogue won't resume unless the South offers a "plausible excuse" for its combined military exercise with the U.S.
In recent weeks, Pyongyang conducted a series of missile tests in an apparent show of force against the ongoing Seoul-Washington joint military exercise. Friday's launches came six days after the North fired projectiles believed to be short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea.
The latest launches were conducted from its eastern coastal county of Tongchon, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. No other details were immediately known, including their type, flight range and maximum altitude.
Analysts say the series of sharp-worded statements by the North are aimed at pushing Seoul to play a bigger role in facilitating its nuclear talks with the U.S. or advancing their cross-border projects.
"They are basically asking for pretext for the North to come out and have inter-Korean talks and save its face," professor Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies said. "It also seems like an indirect message seeking more efforts to change Washington's stance, such as easing sanctions on the North."
Inter-Korean relations have remained stalled as Pyongyang has not responded to Seoul's offers for cooperation and talks amid little progress in its denuclearization negotiations with the U.S.
On Thursday, President Moon said in his speech to mark the liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule that the country will work to bring North Korea back to talks on its denuclearization, reaffirming his strong commitment to inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation despite skepticism over his peace drive amid Pyongyang's saber-rattling and hardening rhetoric.
Calling Moon an "impudent guy rare to be found," the North's statement on Friday dismissed his Thursday speech as rhetorical and thoughtless remarks.
"What cannot but be pointed out is that he said the dialogue atmosphere was not marred despite some recent 'worrisome acts' of North Korea and that things have changed from that in the past when the Korean Peninsula vibrated owing to a single 'provocation' by North Korea -- the reckless remarks that had nothing to do with the 'liberation day,'" the statement said.
"In the speech, he failed to put forward any proper measures against the insult by the Japanese islanders and any ways to overcome the worsening economic situation but only played with words," it added. (Yonhap)