Foreign ministry describes the US secretary of state as ‘reckless’ and says it wants him replaced by another official.
North Korea wants United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo replaced in talks over its banned nuclear programme, with someone “more careful and mature” a senior official told state media, hours after the country announced a missile test.
Describing Pompeo as “reckless” the foreign ministry said a summit in Vietnam earlier this year showed that talks could go wrong “whenever Pompeo pokes his nose in”.
The April meeting in Hanoi between Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump collapsed after the US president reportedly gave Kim a document demanding that North Korea transfer its nuclear arsenal and weapons fuel to the US.
The model proposed was one that Pompeo and US National Security Adviser John Bolton had supported.
“I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled,” Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the ministry’s Department of American Affairs said, according to the official KCNA news agency.
“Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the US, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but… (another) person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us.”
It is not the first time North Korea has singled out Pompeo for special criticism.
When the top US diplomat met North Korean officials in Pyongyang in July last year, he was condemned for his “gangster-like” insistence that the North move towards unilateral disarmament.
Kwon said leader Kim had made clear that the US attitude has to change, adding that Pompeo was standing in the way of a resumption of talks.
“We cannot be aware of Pompeo’s ulterior motive behind his self-indulgence in reckless remarks; whether he is indeed unable to understand words properly or just pretending on purpose,” he said.
