In one statement, North Korea chided US President Joe Biden for saying, in a speech to Congress Thursday, Pyongyang’s nuclear program presents “a serious threat to America’s security and world security.”
A separate statement accused the US of engaging in “political chicanery” last week, when the State Department called North Korea “one of the most repressive and totalitarian states in the world.”
And a third statement attributed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned South Korea would face consequences after North Korean defectors used balloons to send leaflets into North Korean territory.
The comments come after Biden’s press secretary said Friday the administration had completed a months-long policy review on North Korea. Washington plans to pursue a “calibrated, practical approach” that differs from the Trump administration’s strategy of pursuing a grand bargain or the Obama administration’s focus on “strategic patience.”
Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, are scheduled to meet in Washington later this month.
North Korea’s statements were more focused on what it saw as insults from Biden, the State Department and the South Korean government, and all employed the bombastic language often seen in North Korean statements of opposition or displeasure.
Responding to the State Department’s comments on human rights in North Korea, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said the US “has no right to even discuss human rights.”
“The US, where innocent people lose their lives to social inequality and racism every day, where 580,000 people died of novel coronavirus, is itself a human rights wasteland.”
Kwon Jong Gun, the director general of the Department of US Affairs at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said Biden’s remarks on North Korea during his speech were a “big blunder” that was indicative of an “outdated policy from Cold War-minded perspective and viewpoint.”
“His 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,” Kwon said, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Now that what 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.”
