Obama dismisses N. Korea proposal to halt nuke tests

Associated Press

NEW YORK

A day after North Korea’s foreign minister told 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, President Barack Obama said Sunday that Washington isn’t taking the proposal seriously and Pyongyang would “have to do better than that.”

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, interviewed Saturday by the AP, also defended his country’s right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and warned that Pyongyang won’t be cowed by international sanctions.

“Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests,” he said in his first interview Saturday with a Western news organization.

Obama dismissed North Korea’s latest overture at a news conference Sunday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hannover, Germany.

“We don’t take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test these kinds of activities,” Obama said. “What we’ve said consistently ... is that if North Korea shows seriousness in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, then we’ll be prepared to enter into some serious conversations with them about reducing tensions and our approach to protecting our allies in the region. But that’s not something that happens based on a press release in the wake of a series of provocative behaviors. They’re going to have to do better than that.”