North Korea’s state newspaper accused the US of “hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war against the DPRK” while “having a dialogue with a smile on its face” Sunday following a report on South Korean radio that American forces in Japan were running drills aimed at invading Pyongyang.
“We can not but take a serious note of the double-dealing attitudes of the US as it is busy staging secret drills involving man-killing special units while having a dialogue with a smile on its face,” the commentary from North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun said, citing South Korean reports that US special units had been flown to the Philippines as part of an invasion drill.
“The US 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,” it added. The harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang comes just days after President Donald Trump nixed plans for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make what would have been his fourth visit to North Korea, citing insufficient progress on the issue of denuclearization.
“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump said on Friday.