North Korea called Thursday for replacing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with a "more careful and mature" negotiator, accusing the top American diplomat of failing to understand Pyongyang's position and causing the denuclearization talks to become "entangled."

A senior North Korean foreign ministry official made the demand, claiming that whenever Pompeo "pokes his nose in, talks between the two countries go wrong without any results even from the point close to success," according to the Korean Central News Agency.



"I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled," Kwon Jong-gun, director general of the ministry's American affairs department, told KCNA.

"Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the US, I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but (an)other person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us," he added. (Yonhap)