North Korea on Thursday dug in its heels and demanded the end of U.N. sanctions as a condition for talks to continue with world leaders who have been trying to calm war-like rhetoric.
A spokesman for the Policy Department of the National Defense Commission said the U.S.-South Korean military drills must end, too, CBS News reported.
“Dialogue can never go with war actions,” the statement read, as CBS reported.
Other conditions, CBS reported: North Korea demanded the United States to withdraw all nuclear weapon assets from the South. And South Korea must put a stop to all rhetoric that’s critical of the North.
South Korea immediately dismissed the demands.
“We again strongly urge North Korea to stop this kind of insistence that we cannot totally understand and go down the path of a wise choice,” a spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in the CBS report.
North Korea has been threatening to attack South Korea, Japan and the United States for weeks.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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