North Korea rules out nuclear talks, says US will ‘pay dearly’

Bloomberg

North Korea condemned the latest round of United Nations sanctions and reiterated that it wouldn’t negotiate over its nuclear program until the US ceases “hostile” policies.
Kim Jong Un’s regime said it will “make the US pay dearly for all the heinous crime it commits against the state and people of this country,” the Korean Central News Agency reported. In a separate statement to reporters in Manila, North Korea called President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy dangerous and said its nuclear program was necessary to avoid a US invasion similar to those in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
“We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on negotiating table,” North Korea said. “Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves, unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated.”
The response shows that tensions are showing no signs of abating after the UN Security Council unanimously approved measures to restrict North Korea’s exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood. Trump’s administration has threatened military action if necessary to stop North Korea from obtaining an intercontinental ballistic missile that can strike the US with a nuclear weapon.
China, North Korea’s biggest ally and trade partner, backed the sanctions in a bid to spur dialogue. It has urged North Korea to halt future ballistic missile and nuclear tests, while also calling on the US and South Korea to cease military exercises.
“North Korea’s response is expected, because they have their own position,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Manila on Monday. “The key is that we cannot let the situation to continue to escalate, and we need to find an opportunity to turn things around amid the crisis.”
The KCNA report came as diplomats in Asia stepped up efforts to get North Korea to resume dialogue during a regional security meeting in the Philippines. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha urged North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho on Sunday to respond as soon as possible to an offer to resume talks between the two countries, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unidentified foreign ministry official from Seoul. Ri, who previously said he wouldn’t speak with Kang, said the offer “lacks sincerity,” according to the unnamed official. South Korea’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond on Monday to a request for comment.
“It’s a positive but very small step, and can at least help the two Koreas exchange some views on the current state of affairs,” Kim Jin-ho, a professor of political science at Dankook University in South Korea, said of the meeting between foreign ministers.

China counting on sanctions to stop North Korea N-push

Bloomberg

China expressed confidence that new United Nations sanctions would help bring North Korea to the negotiating table to end its push for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho to calmly react to measures to curb its exports and avoid more provocations when they met in Manila, where diplomats from more than 20 countries are attending a security forum. Wang, who also called for the US and South Korea to reduce tensions, said after meeting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the sanctions “created the conditions to find a breakthrough.”
“The goal is to effectively block the DPRK’s nuclear development process,” Wang told reporters in Manila. “Sanctions are needed but not the ultimate goal. The purpose is to pull the peninsula nuclear issue back to the negotiating table, and to seek a final solution.” As North Korea’s main ally and biggest trading partner, China’s role is crucial to pressuring leader Kim Jong Un into halting his push for a nuclear- tipped missile that can hit the US mainland. Many analysts see the North Korean program as too advanced for sanctions to make much difference, and doubt the country will ever completely give up nuclear weapons.