North Korea says no talks with US while ‘hostile policy’ in place

Reclusive nation rebuffs US effort to initiate contact as ‘cheap trick’ as US and South Korea officials meet for talks.

North Korea said on Thursday it would ignore all efforts by the United States to foster contact or dialogue while Washington pursued what it described as a “hostile policy”, as President Joe Biden’s top envoys held talks in Seoul. The North’s first vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui spoke as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin were in the South on the second leg of a northeast Asian tour designed to bolster a united front on the North and an increasingly assertive China. The pair have repeatedly called for the “complete denuclearisation of North Korea” on their trip, which began in Japan.