October 6, 2019 | 5:39am | Updated October 6, 2019 | 6:28am
North Korean negotiator Kim Miyong Gil reads statement outside the North Korean Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. AP
Working-level nuclear talks in Sweden between North Korea and Washington have broken off after a single day without agreement, Pyongyang’s top negotiator said late Saturday — but the White House countered in its own statement that progress was still made.
Talks will resume in Stockholm in two weeks, the State Department said.
“The United States and the DPRK will not overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula through the course of a single Saturday,” the statement said.
“These are weighty issues, and they require a strong commitment by both countries. The United States has that commitment.”
But North Korea’s chief negotiator, Kim Myong Gil, was less optimistic.
After a day in talks with the American delegation, he condemned what he called US inflexibility, complaining that Washington wouldn’t “give up their old viewpoint and attitude.”
“The negotiations have not fulfilled our expectation and finally broke off,” Kim told reporters through an interpreter.
“They have disappointed us greatly and dampened our enthusiasm by bringing nothing to the negotiation table.”
Kim did not confirm that it would be attending resumed talks later this month.
The talks were the first formal discussion since a failed summit in Vietnam in February of 2018; President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had agreed in during their historic demilitarized zone meeting in June to give talks another try.