24 August 2018•Update: 24 August 2018
By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
North Korea indicated Friday that unless Washington is prepared to drop its hardline approach to denuclearization, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit next week to Pyongyang will be a wasted one.
"It's a foolish idea if the U.S. thinks our country would surrender by itself, like other countries who gave in to persistent American sanction pressure," commented the North's state-run propaganda website Uriminzokkiri.
The same outlet criticized Washington's new sanctions on Russian entities accused of doing illicit business with North Korea as a "miscalculation" that will prove to be ineffective.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also recently condemned sanctions against his regime as "brigandish."
Pyongyang has repeatedly called for simultaneous measures to build trust with the U.S., rejecting Washington's stance that the North should fully denuclearize before gaining sanctions relief or any other benefits such as a formal peace treaty to end the 1950-53 Korean War.
Pompeo's visit scheduled for next week will be his fourth trip to the North Korean capital, although he has been unable to make tangible progress since the broad denuclearization agreement between Trump and Kim reached this June.
Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry even denounced the U.S. for making "gangster-like" demands after Pompeo's last visit in early July.
This time, Washington's top envoy will be accompanied by a new special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, a vice president of U.S. automaker Ford.
Biegun was picked Thursday to fill the void left by Joseph Yun, who retired in February.
Meanwhile, Seoul's presidential office expressed optimism about Washington's diplomacy with Pyongyang, despite the apparent gap between them.
"We hope Secretary Pompeo will make big progress in denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula when he visits North Korea," spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters Friday, according to local news agency Yonhap.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in is in line to head to the North next month, following two inter-Korean summits earlier this year.
