[The Rodong Sinmun piece did not mention Trump by name or the decision to cancel Pompeo’s trip. Media outlets controlled by the Pyongyang regime have been careful not to criticize Trump directly since his June 12 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, reserving occasional ire for Pompeo and other members of the administration. But the timing of the piece may be more than coincidence.]
By
Simon Denyer,
TOKYO
— North Korea’s main
newspaper accused the United States on Sunday of staging military drills to
prepare an invasion while at the same time pursuing dialogue with “a smile on
its face.”
Rodong Sinmun, the official mouthpiece of the
Workers’ Party of Korea, cited alleged U.S. troop movements in the region,
which it called “extremely provocative and dangerous” and said they threatened
to derail the dialogue between the United States and North Korea.
The U.S. military called the accusation “far
fetched.”
The opinion piece came two days after
President Trump canceled a planned trip to North Korea by Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo, citing a lack of progress in getting North Korea to surrender its
nuclear weapons.
The Rodong Sinmun piece did not mention Trump
by name or the decision to cancel Pompeo’s trip. Media outlets controlled by
the Pyongyang regime have been careful not to criticize Trump directly since
his June 12 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, reserving occasional
ire for Pompeo and other members of the administration. But the timing of the
piece may be more than coincidence.
Rodong Sinmun cited a South Korean radio
broadcast claiming that U.S. “special units” had recently flown to the
Philippines, arguing this was a drill simulating “infiltration into Pyongyang.”
It also claimed that the USS Michigan nuclear submarine had transported “Green
Berets, Delta Force and other special units” from Okinawa, Japan, to the Jinhae
naval base in South Korea in late July or early August.
Col. John Hutcheson, the director of public
affairs for U.S. Forces Japan, said he wasn’t sure what drills the piece was
referring to.
“U.S. aircraft routinely fly from Japan to
the Philippines and other nations around the region for a variety of training
and operational reasons, so the notion that any single flight is related to
North Korea is a bit far fetched,” he wrote in an email.
But Rodong Sinmun argued the acts “prove that
the U.S. is hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war against the DPRK” in case
Washington fails to achieve denuclearization.
That would be a crime that deserves
“merciless divine punishment,” it said.
“We cannot but take a serious note of the
double-dealing attitudes of the U.S. as it is busy staging secret drills
involving man-killing special units while having a dialogue with a smile on its
face,” the opinion piece continued.
NORTH KOREA ACCUSES U.S. OF PLOTTING INVASION WHILE TALKING WITH ‘A SMILE
ON ITS FACE’
By
Simon Denyer
“The U.S. would be sadly mistaken if it
thinks that it can browbeat someone through trite ‘gunboat diplomacy’ which it
used to employ as an almighty weapon in the past and attain its sinister
intention.”
Trump announced the suspension of the U.S.
military’s annual exercises with South Korea when he met Kim, calling those
exercises “provocative.”
In his Friday tweets, Trump put some of the
blame on China for the lack of progress with North Korea, tweeting that because
of his “tougher Trading stance,” the Chinese were not “helping with the process
of denuclearization as they once were.”
Beijing said those remarks showed a “total
disregard of the facts.”
In a statement released Saturday, Chinese
foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China is making “unremitting efforts”
to abide by the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions and urged all parties to
“stick to the direction of seeking a political settlement.”
Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in
convened a meeting of his National Security Council on Sunday to discuss the
cancellation of Pompeo’s trip.
A spokesman said Moon’s planned trip to
Pyongyang in September — his third summit with Kim this year — now took on
added significance.
“The circumstances show that President Moon
has a bigger role as the facilitator and a mediator unblocking the impasse
between North Korea and the U.S. and widening the scope of mutual
understanding,” South Korean presidential Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-keum
told reporters Sunday.
Min Joo Kim in Seoul contributed to this
report.
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