Pyongyang, July 24: North Korea said the “comprehensive package” of incentives designed to guide the country to denuclearization is “nonsense” and blamed a “deep-rooted hostile policy” by the United States for causing the ongoing stalemate in denuclearization discussions.
Ri Hung-sik, deputy head of the North Korean delegation to this week’s Asean Regional Forum in Thailand, dismissed the offer of incentives as “just a replay of the Bush administration’s policy of CVID [complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement].”
“The six-party talks are already dead,” Ri said, reiterating his country’s previously stated position. “The United States must abandon its hostile policy before we can talk.”
Ri’s comments came on the heels of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement late Wednesday that Washington would be willing to normalize relations with Pyongyang if North Korea agreed to “complete and irreversible denuclearization.” She said normalizing relations would be part of “a package of incentives and opportunities.”
Last week, Kurt Campbell, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, and South Korean diplomats discussed the “comprehensive package that would be attractive to North Korea” and urged Pyongyang to take “serious, irreversible first steps.”
Separately, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry told the state-run Korean Central News Agency that Clinton was “a primary schoolgirl” with no etiquette or intelligence. In a recent interview, Clinton said North Korea was akin to “an unruly teenager” who craved attention that it didn’t deserve.
“[North Korea] has taken necessary measures to protect the nation’s sovereignty and right to existence in order to cope with U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threats, not to attract anyone’s attention,” a spokesman from the ministry said. “We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community.
“Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping,” he added. “Her words suggest that she is by no means intelligent.”
However, the United States maintained pressure on Pyongyang. The U.S. Senate yesterday adopted a measure calling on the Obama administration to review the possibility of re-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Lawmakers also urged the federal government to consider new sanctions on Pyongyang and asked for a report within 30 days containing “any credible evidence” that North Korea has aided terrorism or terrorist groups.
Democratic Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led the move, which regards North Korea as “a threat to the Northeast Asian region and to international peace and security.” It passed as an amendment to the annual U.S. defense spending bill, which requires the full approval of the Senate and House of Representatives before reaching President Obama.
–Agencies