North Korea says Biden policy shows US intent on being hostile, vows response
02 May, 2021
Recent comments from US President Joe Biden and members of his administration show he's intent on maintaining a hostile policy toward North Korea that may need a corresponding response from Pyongyang, North Korean officials said on Sunday (May 2).
The officials' comments came in a number of statements continued state news agency KCNA, following the White House on Friday said US officials had completed a months-long overview of North Korean policy.
In a single statement, a Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Washington of insulting the dignity of the country's supreme leadership by criticising North Korea's human rights situation.
The human rights criticism is a provocation that shows the United States is "girding itself up for an all-out showdown" with North Korea, and you will be answered accordingly, the unnamed spokesman said.
In another statement, Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, cited Biden's first policy speech to Congress on Wednesday, where in fact the new president said nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran posed threats that might be addressed through "diplomacy and stern deterrence."
Kwon said it really is illogical and an encroachment after North Korea's to self-defense for america to call its defensive deterrence a threat.
Biden's speech was "intolerable" and "a big blunder," Kwon said. "His statement obviously reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward the DPRK as it had been done by the US for over half of a century," he said, using the initials for North Korea's official name.
Beneath the policy announced on Friday, Biden has settled on a fresh method of pressuring North Korea to stop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that may explore diplomacy however, not seek a grand bargain with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House said.
The White House and State Department did not immediately touch upon the most recent North Korean statements.
In Sunday's statement, Kwon Jong Gun said US talk of diplomacy is targeted at covering up its hostile acts, and its own deterrence is just a way for posing nuclear threats to North Korea.
Given that Biden's policy is becoming clear, North Korea "will be compelled to press for corresponding measures, and as time passes the US will see itself in a very grave situation," he concluded.
In a third statement, Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the government and sister of leader Kim Jong Un, sharply criticised South Korea for failing woefully to stop defector activists from launching anti-North Korea leaflets.
An activist group in South Korea said on Friday it had released balloons into North Korea carrying dollar bills and leaflets denouncing the government in Pyongyang, defying a recently imposed law banning such releases after complaints by the North.
"We regard the maneuvers committed by the human wastes in the south as a significant provocation against our state and will look into corresponding action," Kim Yo Jong said.
Last year, North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, North Korea, after Kim Yo Jong led a campaign of criticism over the leaflet launches.
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