N. Korea to AP: Will halt nuke tests if US stops S. Korea drills

Associated Press

NEW YORK

North Korea’s foreign minister said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that his country is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the U.S. suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea.

He also defended the country’s right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and warned that North Korea won’t be cowed by international sanctions. And for those waiting for the North’s regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don’t hold your breath.

Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, in his first interview with a Western news organization, held firm to Pyongyang’s longstanding position that the U.S. drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defense. At the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.

“If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well,” he said, speaking in Korean through an interpreter. “It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise.” DPRK is an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Ri, who spoke calmly and in measured words, a contrast to the often bombastic verbiage used by the North’s media, claimed the North’s proposal was “very logical.”

Ri also defended the jailing of an American student over purported anti-state activities, but told The Associated Press that he would inform authorities in Pyongyang there is concern in the U.S. over the student’s fate.

North Korea’s highest court sentenced Otto Warmbier, of Wyoming, Ohio, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate, to 15 years in prison at hard labor after he confessed he had tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church.