North Korea on Wednesday accused the United States of showing bad faith in negotiations by conducting nuclear and missile tests and military drills as part of an "evil ambition" to conquer North Korea by force, even while advocating dialogue.
In the latest uptick in angry rhetoric from Pyongyang after a failed summit with the United States in February, a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement repeated complaints about an ongoing U.S. sanctions campaign, including the seizure of one of the country's biggest cargo ships, and warned that "use of strength is not at all a monopoly of the United States."
The statement, attributed to the Policy Research Director of the ministry's Institute for American Studies and carried by official media, noted that the United States had conducted a subcritical nuclear test on Feb. 13, just days before a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.