North Korea ‘May Reconsider Steps to Build Trust with US’

By Staff, Agencies

North Korea said on Thursday its patience has limits and it could reverse steps to build trust with the United States, as it criticized a UN Security Council call for it to cease its weapons programs and denounced a US missile test.

Relatively, the five European members of the UN Security Council met on Tuesday to urge North Korea “to take concrete steps” towards giving up its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.

That call came days after North Korea said it test-fired a new submarine-launched ballistic missile, in what was the most provocative action by North Korea since it resumed dialogue with the United States in 2018.

North Korea, as part of its efforts to sustain that dialogue, which has included three meetings between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and US President Donald Trump, has stopped testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But North Korea’s foreign ministry spokesman, in a statement reported by its state KCNA news agency, raised questions about that restraint.

“There is a limit to our patience and there is no law that anything we have refrained from so far will continue indefinitely,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman also denounced what he said was the UN Security Council’s unfair taking up of the issue of North Korea’s self-defense.

“The fact ... is prompting us to reconsider the crucial pre-emptive steps we have taken to build trust with the US.”