DPRK says no dialogue with U.S. without Washington abandoning hostility

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Saturday that it is not interested in holding any dialogue with the United States as long as Washington refuses to abandon its hostile policy towards Pyongyang.

The present U.S. administration is blaming Pyongyang for 20-odd years of failed DPRK-U.S. talks to justify its economic sanctions and military standoff, Rodong Sinmum, the official daily of the ruling Korean Workers' Party, said in a commentary.

"It openly reveals its intention not to rule out the use of military force including unilateral preemptive attack, to say nothing of multilateral military and diplomatic pressure and high-intensity economic sanctions and redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea," the newspaper said.

The United States has claimed that "it does not harbor any illusion about dialogue with the DPRK," said the paper.

"Meanwhile, the U.S. is pressurizing countries around the DPRK to join it in putting diplomatic pressure and high-intensity economic sanctions on the DPRK. It even threatens that it would seek out an independent way of preventing the DPRK from bolstering nuclear deterrence," it added.

The United States has been calling for tighter economic sanctions against the DPRK and has threatened to take military action for its nuclear and missile tests, triggering high tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The two countries had held dialogue both bilaterally and within the framework of the Six-Party Talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in the past, but failed to achieve any results. Endi