The North Korean National Defense Commission spokesperson said Saturday that the United States should end sanctions implemented to penalize Pyongyang, and to cease military exercises in Korean waters.
Officials in North Korea chastised America's two-day long joint naval drills with South Korea and Japan, saying that the exercises were acts of military confrontation, the Telegraph reported. Pyongyang added that it was prepared to respond to any allied provocation.
These statements from the DPRK came just a few days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry offered an agreement of non-aggression, provided that North Korea hand over their store of nuclear weapons, which Pyongyang rejected.
Kerry said that the door for negotiation with North Korea would be open if an agreement could be reached that the North will work with the international community and denuclearize.
According to the Associated Press, Kerry added that government officials in Washington were prepared to have non-violent and non-threatening relationship with Pyongyang, as long as their nuclear weapons were destroyed.
The administration on Capitol Hill maintained that it was ready to resume nuclear negotiations with the North, as long as leader Kim Jong Un started acting upon the goal to denuclearize his cabinet agreed on in 2005.
The North publicized this statement a few days after the mother of American Kenneth Bae, who has been detained in Pyongyang for months on grounds that he allegedly tried to overthrow the DPRK government, visited him.
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