US State Secretary Slammed

Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of American Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, gave the following answer to a question raised by the KCNA on April 18 as regards the fact that Pompeo, US secretary of the State, is letting loose reckless remarks and sophism of all kinds against the DPRK every day:

In his historic policy speech delivered at the First Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly, Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, clarified the principled stand on the DPRK-US relations and settlement of the nuclear issue and said he would wait in patience till the end of this year to see whether the United States makes a courageous decision or not.

Everyone has a clear interpretation of his speech which says that the US should change its way of calculation and come up with responsive measures before the end of this year. Just at this time, only Pompeo is talking nonsense that its meaning is to finish the working-level negotiation between the US and the DPRK by the end of the year, which subjects him to public ridicule.

We cannot understand Pompeo's ulterior motive behind his self-indulgence in reckless remarks; whether he is really unable to understand the words properly or just pretending on purpose. However, it is very dangerous if he really failed to grasp the meaning.

If his behaviour is intended, I think it is none other than a silly calculation to be free from the constraint that the US should make a move until the end of the year, misrepresenting the meaning of our requirement as the finalization of the working-level negotiation by the end of the year by making use of his talented skill of fabricating stories like a fiction writer.

As our Chairman of the State Affairs Commission has clarified, the US cannot move us one iota by its current way of thinking.

In his previous visits to Pyongyang, Pompeo was granted an audience with our Chairman of the State Affairs Commission several times and pleaded for the denuclearization. But, after his return home, he spouted reckless remarks hurting the dignity of our supreme leadership at Congress hearings last week to unveil his mean character by himself, thus stunning the reasonable people.

I would like to take this opportunity to make clear once again to Pompeo the meaning of the stand towards the US clarified by our Chairman of the State Affairs Commission in his policy speech.

The meaning is that the US should get rid of the root cause that pushed us into a nuclear state and the obstacles in the way to denuclearization by its own hands; otherwise no one can predict how the situation on the Korean peninsula will develop.

While Pompeo is fabricating stories of his own accord and trying to pull his publicity stunt at the sacrifice of the DPRK-US relations as a whole, it is fortunate that the personal relationship between our Chairman of the State Affairs Commission and President Trump is on good terms as usual and our Chairman is pleased to get on well with President Trump.

The Hanoi summit gives us a lesson that whenever Pompeo pokes his nose in, the talks go wrong without any results even from the point close to success. I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled.

Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the US, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but other person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us.