North Korea’s Ambassador to the United Nations on Monday rejected Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Speaking to Reuters, the ambassador, So Se Pyong, said Trump’s proposal is a “kind of propaganda or advertisement” in his election race.
Trump told the same news agency last week he is willing to talk to the North Korean leader to try to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program, proposing a major shift in U.S. policy toward the isolated nation.
“It is up to the decision of my Supreme Leader whether he decides to meet or not, but I think his (Trump’s) idea or talk is nonsense,” So said in response.
“It’s for utilization of the presidential election, that’s all. A kind of a propaganda or advertisement,” he said. “This is useless, just a gesture for the presidential election.”
“There is no meaning, no sincerity,” So added.
Trump’s comments came after Pyongyang conducted several missile tests in recent months, though it failed in its last several attempts to do so.
North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range rocket in February, triggering tougher international sanctions and the adoption of a more hardline position by South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Kim recently adopted a soft tone on his country’s nuclear program, saying that North Korea would only use nuclear weapons if attacked by a nuclear power, adding he wanted improved relations with previously “hostile” nations.
So, who is also North Korea’s ambassador to the UN-backed Conference on Disarmament, reiterated to Reuters on Monday that his country was prepared to return to stalled six-party talks on its nuclear program. China and Russia backed the idea, but the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan reject it, he said.
“As a responsible nuclear state … we will never use them first,” So said. “If the United States use their nuclear weapons first, then we have to use also that one.”
“If the United States gives up their hostile policies and changes their attitude, then we also (can) have relations as a normal country. To South Korea, we proposed high-level military talks but South Korea refused now,” he told Reuters.
Trump’s preparedness to meet Kim contrasts with President Barack Obama’s policy of relying on senior U.S. officials to talk to senior North Korean officials.
Obama has not engaged personally with Kim, but in February there were conflicting reports regarding a proposal for renewed United States-North Korea peace talks.
The State Department insisted that Washington rejected a North Korean proposal to discuss a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War because it did not address denuclearization on the peninsula.
But a report earlier in the Wall Street Journal suggested the opposite – that it was the United States that offered the peace treaty and that Pyongyang had been the one to reject it.
