Kim Yo-jong, director of the publicity and information department of North Korea's Workers' Party, stressed that "our status as a nuclear weapons state is an absolute, irreversible red line and an undeniable reality, whether or not anyone recognizes it," responding to a U.S. State Department position that "the leaders of the United States and China agreed on the complete denuclearization of North Korea."
North Korea's Rodong Sinmun reported Sunday that Kim, in a statement Saturday, called the State Department's position "a habitual game of spreading lies by the United States." Regarding remarks by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) that the U.S. and Chinese leaders had agreed at their meeting last month to maintain the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, Kim said it was "a complete fabrication and a baseless piece of false information." She added, "It may be the wish of U.S. officials whose obsession with the archaic term 'denuclearization' is unusually strong, but it is not true at all."
The statement is interpreted as drawing a line against any discussion of denuclearization at a North Korea-China summit, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to North Korea on Monday. Kim said, "We have the most accurate information regarding whether such a fact exists," suggesting the possibility that North Korea had shared information with China about the U.S.-China summit.
