The United States has explicitly confronted North Korea about suspected secret nuclear weapons facilities during ongoing denuclearization negotiations, a commentary published over the weekend by the North's state-run media has appeared to show.

In the commentary released Saturday, the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, blasted "those opposed to dialogue" in the U.S., saying that officials both inside and outside the White House had "provided the negotiating team with a truncheon called (the) 'theory of suspected north Korea's secret nuclear facilities,' a fiction, driving it to derailing dialogue."

Since U.S. President Donald Trump's landmark June meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a steady trickle of reports citing U.S. intelligence and other sources have claimed that Pyongyang has continued to boost its nuclear fuel production and missile capabilities at multiple secret sites despite a denuclearization pledge agreed to at the historic meeting.