North Korea have demanded the removal of US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo from all nuclear talks between the country and the US accusing him of derailing discussions.
Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of American Affairs at North Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry made the statement, according to the official KCNA news agency.
“I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled,” he was reported as saying.
“Therefore, even in the case of a 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.”
The comment comes after Pyongyang announced the test-firing of a new tactical weapon with a “powerful warhead” – the first of such since negotiations started.
Both countries had met twice but talks collapsed without agreement.
And Kwon Jong Gun warned that if the US did not “get rid of the root cause” that led the North to acquire nuclear weapons, “no one can predict the situation on the Korean peninsula”.