NUCLEAR SUMMIT: North Korea calls US VP ‘stupid’, ‘a political dummy’

Doubts on whether next month’s summit between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump would go ahead as planned still lingers after a senior North Korean official accused US Vice-President Mike Pence of being “stupid”.

That statement was made by Choe Son-hui in Pyongyang who warned of a possible “nuclear showdown” if diplomacy fails and also added that North Korea would not “beg the US for dialogue” nor try to persuade them to attend talks.

In an article carried by state news agency KCNA, she said Mr Pence had made “unbridled and impudent remarks” in the media in recent days, including his comments that North Korea “may end like Libya”.

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She called him a “political dummy” for comparing North Korea “a nuclear weapon state, to Libya that had simply installed a few items of equipment and fiddled around with them”.

According to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang is considering a suspension of the summit because of US-South Korean military exercises, which it said threatened warming ties on the divided peninsula.

Meanwhile, reports say North Korea has started dismantling its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, according to satellite pictures analysed by experts.

Washington will agree to lift sanctions on North Korea if the country completely dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, so says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

 

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