North Korea has warned that it could revive its scrapped policy of building up its nuclear arsenal if the U.S. does not remove harsh economic sanctions as part of reciprocal measures Pyongyang has demanded in ongoing denuclearization talks.
In a statement released Friday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang could revert to leader Kim Jong Un's signature policy of pyongjin, or "parallel advance," in which the country simultaneously pursues economic and nuclear development.
"If the U.S. keeps behaving arrogant without showing any change in its stand ... the DPRK may add one thing to the state line for directing all efforts to the economic construction adopted in April and as a result, the word 'pyongjin' (simultaneously conducting economic construction and building up nuclear forces) may appear again and the change of the line could be seriously reconsidered," the statement said.