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North Korea on Saturday denounced the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as a “pipe dream” that can never be realized, as South Korea announced that President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to discuss the issue during their summit talks.
Lee and Xi are scheduled to hold their first summit meeting Saturday afternoon on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the southeastern city of Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province.
The South Korean presidential office said the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be on the agenda.
North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong-ho criticized Seoul for repeatedly raising the denuclearization issue, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“We will show with patience that denuclearization is a ‘pipe dream’ which can never be realized even if it talks about it a thousand times,” Pak said in a statement carried by the KCNA.
Pak said South Korea remains unaware that “struggling to deny the DPRK’s position as a nuclear weapons state and talking about its daydream of realizing the denuclearization just reveal its lack of common sense.” DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The North appeared to protest the South Korean presidential office’s announcement on placing the denuclearization issue on the summit agenda.
It also seemed to express its discomfort to China over the matter ahead of the Lee-Xi meeting.
In May last year, Pyongyang denounced Seoul for stating its commitment to the denuclearization of the peninsula in a joint declaration issued after the trilateral summit among the leaders of South Korea, China, and Japan.
At the time, North Korea rejected the statement as “wanton interference” in its internal affairs.
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