North Korean leaders said they see little reason to maintain ties with President Trump two years after the leaders’ first summit in Singapore.
Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said in a statement run by state media Friday that since the summit the hostile relationship between the two countries is “unchanged, but the situation of the Korean peninsula is getting worse.”
The 2018 summit was largely symbolic and lacked a tangible agreement. At a second summit in 2019, the U.S. failed to reach a deal with North Korea to completely give up its nuclear weapons, and North Korean demands for swift sanctions relief.
Pyongyang has lashed out with a rash of weapons tests in recent months and criticism of Washington’s scrutiny of China, its chief ally and economic booster.
Ri said Trump, who has touted his relationship with North Korea, was trying to gain political clout instead of actually reaching a mutual agreement.
“Never again will we provide the U.S. chief executive with another package to be used for achievements without receiving any returns,” he said. “Nothing is more hypocritical than an empty promise.”
On Thursday North Korea warned the U.S. to stay out of its affairs and threatened to disrupt the presidential election in November if the Trump administration kept up its criticism of Pyongyang for its decision to cut communication with South Korea.