North Korea on Sunday fumed at US reports that the country is seeking economic assistance from the United States in return for denuclearization.
The ruling Workers' Party's official newspaper Rodong Sinmun commented that Fox News TV, CBS and CNN were "as impudent as to make rubbish that if the DPRK meets the requirements of the US, it can get 'large-scale non-governmental economic aid.'"
"This is nonsense of hack media on the payroll of power," according to its commentary carried in an English dispatch by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Kim Jong-un (KCNA)
"US media is still building up public opinion that the DPRK comes to the negotiating table with the US in a hope to get 'economic aid,'" the report said using the initial of the North's full name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "We can not but make the fact clear. It is the US that asked for DPRK-US talks first," the North claimed.
"As far as the 'economic aid' ... is concerned, the DPRK has never expected it."
The report also said that "the world-startling dramatic change in the DPRK-US ties was entirely thanks to the DPRK's efforts for peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the world."
The newspaper commentary came amid hectic diplomacy to salvage the planned summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US
President Donald Trump after Trump alluded to canceling the meeting slated for June 12 in Singapore. Trump later said the summit would go ahead as planned.
With a sense of urgency, Kim held a summit with President Moon Jae-in at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom on Saturday.
During a briefing on the results of the secretly arranged meeting, Moon said Sunday that "Chairman Kim appeared to be concerned with whether he could be confident that the US will truly end animosity with the North and guarantee the security of its regime in return for denuclearization." (Yonhap)
