Politics
Kim Jong-un reacts with fury as Biden brands North Korea ‘security threat’
NORTH KOREA has reacted in rage as the US president describes of the country as a security threat, calling the move a “big blunder”.
A senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official said the US could find itself in a “grave situation” after Joe Biden called nuclear programmes in North Korea and Iran a “serious threat to America’s security and world security” in Congress last week.
A senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official said the US could find itself in a “grave situation”[/caption]
It comes after Biden said North Korea nuclear programmes are a “serious threat”[/caption]
Biden promised to work to address the issues through “diplomacy and stern deterrence”.
But the Foreign Ministry official, Kwon Jong Gun, was not convinced and said talk of diplomacy was being used to cover up US “hostile policy”.
In a statement reported by news agency KCNA, he said: “[Mr Biden’s] statement clearly reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward the DPRK as it had been done by the US for over half a century.
“It is certain that the US chief executive made a big blunder in the light of the present-day viewpoint.
“Now that the keynote of the US new DPRK policy has become clear, we will be compelled to press for corresponding measures, and with time the US will find itself in a very grave situation.”
Mr Kwon was not specific about the steps North Korea would follow.
Another unnamed foreign ministry spokesperson said the US had insulted the dignity of North Korea’s leadership by criticising the country’s human rights situation.
The spokesperson said that the criticism is a provocation that shows the US is “girding itself up for an all-out showdown” with North Korea.
On Friday the White House said that a review of US policy towards North Korea had been completed.
Press secretary Jen Psaki did not give details of the review’s findings but she said the Biden administration would seek a middle ground between Donald Trump’s “grand bargain” and Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” approaches.
“BIG BLUNDER”
Mr Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a number of times during his presidency, each time claiming to have made major progress.
But no deal was ever reached.
North Korea is reluctant to surrender the nuclear weapons it sees as necessary for its own protection without some form of sanctions relief.
The US had wanted steps towards denuclearisation before committing to the easing of sanctions.
Markus Garlauskas, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and former US national intelligence officer for North Korea, said: “The differences between the Kim regime and the United States are much more fundamental.”
He added that Mr Kim does not intend to give up nuclear weapons or reform North Korea’s political system but it is difficult to see how the US could embrace a nuclear-armed North Korea that abuses human rights.
It comes after a defector warned that Kim Jong-un is a “modern day Hitler” who will never stop developing nukes as he thinks the US is weak and he can bully them, a North Korean defector has warned.
Yeonmi Park told The Sun Online that the Kim “doesn’t see America as strong, at all” and will continue to do “whatever he wants” as long as China backs him.
And she says the tyrant thinks he can continue to “bully” the US under President Joe Biden, just as his family have done for decades.
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“He knows he can bully America, he can bully anyone he wants because China is supporting him and China,” he said.
“North Korea is never going to stop building their weaponry. They know America will never do anything to stop them.
“They haven’t for the last 75 years and they’ve let North Korea bully them.”
