TENSIONS

North Korea’s State Media Accuses U.S. of ‘Criminal Plot’

Days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit was called off.

North Korea’s state-controlled media accused Washington of “double-dealing” on Sunday, just days after President Trump canceled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to the country. In an editorial, the country’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused the U.S. of staging air drills in Japan aimed at “the infiltration into Pyongyang,” a move the paper claims proves that Washington is “hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war” against North Korea. “We cannot but take a serious note of the double-dealing attitudes of the U.S. as it is busy staging secret drills involving man-killing special units while having a dialogue with a smile on its face,” the paper wrote. It wasn’t immediately clear which drills the paper was referring to, but a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul had no knowledge of any such drills, according to Reuters. The editorial made no mention of Pompeo’s visit, but called on Washington to stop its “pointless military gamble.” The comments appear to mark the latest deterioration in relations after President Trump’s June summit with Kim Jong Un spurred hope of complete denuclearization in North Korea, a goal that Trump himself admits is far from being fulfilled.