North Korea: U.S. Military Exercises ‘Intolerable Mockery’ of Talks

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Wednesday said joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea occurring while the U.S.and North Korea plan a summit are an “intolerable mockery” of the upcoming historic dialogue.

“When the DPRK and the U.S. are coming for face-to-face dialogue with the will to solve the pending issues, it is unnecessary for the U.S. to stage the joint military exercises, the main root cause of aggravating tension and bringing nuclear war to the Korean peninsula, together with south Korea,” the publication wrote. North Korean publications do not capitalize South Korea because they do not recognize the government in Seoul as a legitimate sovereign, but rather a rogue state of greater Korea, as governed by the Kim Jong-un cult.

It continued that the joint military exercises raise questions as to whether the U.S. truly wants peace or seeks, instead, to pursue war.

“The world people say that the U.S. persists in staging the joint military drills as it does not hope for the detente on the Korean peninsula and has no interest in reconciliation with the DPRK,” Rodong Sinmun wrote. “If the U.S. sincerely hopes for the talks, it should stop the acts of threatening its dialogue partner by force. It is high time the U.S. behaved properly, clearly seeing what is profitable for it.”

On May 15, North Korean state media reported that the nation’s senior diplomats were canceling the scheduled high-level talks with their South Korean counterparts due to military drills Seoul had planned with the United States until May 25.

Pyongyang claimed the drills were “targeting” them. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the government news outlet of Kim Jong-Un’s regime, said:

This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea and targeting us, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula. The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities.

South Korea reportedly said the Max Thunder drills were focused on improving the skills of pilots and were not attack exercises, as the North had suggested. In spite of this, South Korea said the drills will continue.

The reaction by the North prompted President Donald Trump to cancel the planned June summit.

North Korea’s state media has also increasingly expressed concern that any steps towards peace with the United States would expose the North Korean people to capitalism. North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun ran an article Wednesday claiming that human relations in capitalist societies are based on individualism and replete with an “I must kill you to live” mentality.

“Murder, rape, abduction, human trafficking, theft and swindle are committed for money, individual honor and luxury,” the communist publication wrote, adding, “In capitalist society, moral corruption of man is being further fermented by the reactionary ruling class.”

The statements concluded with, “The moral corruption of man is an inevitable product of capitalist society, the article says, stressing that rampant immorality and corruption leads a country to ruin in the long run.”

The regime’s newspaper has published several pieces degraded the United States as the highly-anticipated June talks approach.

This week, the publication said the U.S. has a “hack media” for allowing the Trump administration to appear on TV, writing, “This is nonsense of hack media on the payroll of power, ignorant of who is the rival. U.S. media would be well advised to stop talking nonsense as hack media and deeply study what the strategic line advanced at the historic April Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea means.”

At the beginning of the month, the publication referred to western democracy as the “most reactionary and unpopular ruling system.”

In March, Rudong Sinmun said America was “a human rights desert where even elementary human rights are not provided.”

On Sunday, an American delegation reportedly met with North Koreans officials in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to plan for the anticipated June 12 summit between the two nations in Singapore. On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Kim Yong Chol, the former military intelligence chief and one of Kim’s closest aides for dinner in New York before a series of planned meetings at the White House.

During Kim and Pompeo’s New York meeting, others from the U.S. teams reportedly met with North Korean officials in Singapore and in the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone, or 38th parallel.

Asked to react to the prospect of the June summit taking place, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders reportedly said, “If it happens, we’ll certainly be ready. We’re going to continue to shoot for June 12th.”

Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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