By Lee Min-hyung
The United States and North Korea is still engaging in a war of verbs, as they fail to narrow their differences over the denuclearization timeline of the regime.
On Thursday, the North demanded the U.S. should first declare the end of the 1950-50 Korean War, saying it will terminate the military tension between Washington and Pyongyang.
“The declaration of the end of the war will build a key momentum for the trust-building between the U.S. and the North,” said Uriminjokkiri, a North Korean propaganda media outlet.
“The end of the technical state of the war is the first step for the U.S. to comply with the trust-building gesture from the North,” it said.
The North continued to step up its provocative rhetoric, with another pro-North Korea media outlet saying that Washington failed to make efforts to end the ongoing political stalemate over the denuclearization deal from both sides.
“The U.S. is still sticking to the sanction drive against the regime, but this will not allow the bilateral relations to improve,” Maeari said.
This came ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's planned visit to Pyongyang to come to terms with the timeframe over the regime's pledge for denuclearization.
Pompeo plans to visit the regime's capital sometime between the end of this month and the beginning of next month. No specific timeline has been confirmed over his Pyongyang visit.
North Korea has in recent months called for the South and the U.S. to declare the end to the war at the earliest possible date. But Washington has also taken advantage of the issue in the political tug-of-war with North Korea, urging the regime to speed up its denuclearization in a verifiable way before it would declare an end to war.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington is considering relaxing economic sanctions imposed on North Korea. But he said the changes will only be made if Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear weapons first.
Trump said he was communicating with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on a need basis and praised Kim's efforts towards denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.
But because the June summit in Singapore between Trump and the North's Kim ended with vague agreement and no inclusion of specifics about when and how the North will do that, Trump and key policymakers in Washington want to see performance from North Korea on denuclearization.
“North Korea has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize,” John Bolton, national security adviser to Trump said adding Washington will send its secretary of state Mike Pompeo back to Pyongyang for further talks.