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N Korea leader warns of a return to tension

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SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Russian President Vladimir Putin peace and security on the Korean peninsula depended on the United States, warning that a state of hostility could easily return, North Korean media said on Friday.


Kim’s remarks, at talks with Putin in Vladivostok on Thursday, will likely add to pressure on the United States to be more flexible on a North Korean demand for an easing of international sanctions.


A second summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Vietnam in February collapsed with no progress on a US demand that the North give up its nuclear programme and a North Korean demand for an easing of sanctions.


The North Korean leader has said he would wait until the end of the year for the United States to be more flexible.


“The situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point where it may return to its original state as the US took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-US summit talks,” North Korea’s KCNA reported Kim as saying. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is North Korea’s official name.


“The DPRK will gird itself for every possible situation.” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.


William Hagerty, the US ambassador to Japan, told a Washington think-tank that Kim’s contact with Russia and China was part of an effort to seek relief from international sanctions.


“The fact you see Kim Jong Un meeting with Vladimir Putin underscores the fact that the sanctions are working and the sanctions are putting extreme economic pressure on the North Korean regime,” Hagerty said.


— Reuters


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