N Korea rules out possibility of contact with US, says state media report

North Korea has ruled out the "possibility of any contact" with the US, according to a state media report.

"We are not considering even the possibility of any contact with the US, let alone having it, which would get us nowhere, only taking up precious time," Foreign Minister Ri Son-gwon said in a statement on Wednesday released by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Ri also said his Ministry "welcomes the clear-cut press statement issued by the vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, which is to brush off hasty judgment, conjecture and expectation of the US", Xinhua news agency reported.

He was referring to a statement on Tuesday by Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who said Washington's expectation of resuming talks with Pyongyang was wrong and "would plunge them into a greater disappointment".

On Sunday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called Kim Jong-un's comments of preparing both dialogue and conflict with Washington as an "interesting signal".

The remarks made during a key Workers' Party meeting on June 17 in Pyongyang marked the first time that Kim Jong-un spoke of the US since President Joe Biden took office in January.

Sullivan added the US will "wait to see whether they are followed up with any kind of more direct communication to us about a potential path forward".

The Biden administration at the end of April completed its policy review towards North Korea.

Kim Jong-un and former US President Donald Trump held their first summit in Singapore in June 2018, agreeing on a complete denuclearization of and a lasting peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula.

Denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington have been stalled since the second Kim-Trump summit ended without agreement in February 2019 in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

--IANS

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