Pyongyang ups pressure on Washington ahead of Biegun’s visit to Seoul this week

North Korea reiterated that it will not talk with the United States as long as the latter sticks to hostile policies and attempts use dialogue as a “tool for grappling with its political crisis.”

The statement by the North’s First

Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, Saturday, appears to be a move to ramp up pressure on the U.S. ahead of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun’s visit to South Korea slated for Tuesday to Thursday.

Also the U.S. special representative for North Korea, Biegun will come here after U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton last week hinted at another summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jongun before the U.S. presidential election in November.

This will be Biegun’s first South Korea visit since December, fueling speculation over his message on Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

Biegun separately said last week the Trump-Kim summit is “probably unlikely” before the election but added Washington is prepared for “engagement between the two sides.”

Frustrated by the faltered nuclear negotiations despite three TrumpKim meetings from 2018 to 2019, the North rather has been backing away from the dialogue and has been ratcheting up military threats.

“Is it possible to hold a dialogue or have any dealings with the U.S. which persists in the hostile policy toward the DPRK in disregard of the agreements already made at the past summit?” Choe said, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “We do not feel any need to sit face-to-face with the U.S., as it considers the DPRK-U.S. dialogue as nothing more than a tool for grappling with its political crisis.”

Choe added the U.S. is mistaken if it thinks “negotiations would still work on us” and that the North has already “worked out a detailed strategic timetable for putting under control the long-term threat from the U.S.”