The Guardian:
North Korea has warned that new US sanctions against senior figures in the regime are a “deliberate provocation” that could derail its attempts to denuclearize, six months after its leader, Kim Jong-un held historic talks with Donald Trump.
In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, the North praised Trump for his “willingness” to improve relations with Pyongyang, but said the US treasury’s decision to impose sanctions on three officials over alleged human rights abuses could “block the path to denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula forever”.
“We have been proposing that the DPRK-US relations be improved on a step-by-step approach of resolving what is feasible one by one, by giving priority to confidence building,” it added, using the acronym for the country’s official name the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
