North Korea branded US diplomacy “spurious” on Sunday, dismissing the idea of talks with Washington a day after the Biden administration said it was open to diplomatic negotiations on denuclearization, state media reported.
Diplomacy was a “spurious signboard” for the United States to “cover up its hostile acts,” the North Korean foreign ministry said in a statement run by the KCNA news agency.
It also warned President Joe Biden that he had made a “big blunder” with his “outdated” stance towards the country.
In a separate statement also run by KCNA, the foreign ministry accused Biden of insulting Kim Jong-Un, and added: “We have warned the US sufficiently enough to understand that it will get hurt if it provokes us.”
Biden had said in his first address as president to Congress on Wednesday that he would use “diplomacy as well as stern deterrence” to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
The White House said Friday that its goal remains “the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”
US policy will see “a calibrated, practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy” with North Korea, Biden’s press secretary Jen Pskai told reporters.
