FM Ri Hails Tehran for Standing With Pyongyang:

North Korea to Preserve Nuclear Know-How

Date: 10 August 2018 - 21:31

News ID: ۵۶۱۴۵

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- North Korea will preserve its nuclear know-how despite its promise of denuclearization to the United States, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said during a visit to Tehran, Iranian media reported on Thursday.
Despite the agreement to denuclearize the Korean peninsula struck during a landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, "we preserve our nuclear science as we know that the Americans will not abandon their hostility toward us," Ri said, according to the Mehr news agency.
"Dealing with Americans is difficult, and as our main goal is total disarmament of the whole Korean Peninsula, it is necessary that the Americans also abide by their commitments but they refuse to do so."
At the June summit with Trump, Kim made a vague commitment to denuclearization - far from the longstanding U.S. demand for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of Pyongyang's atomic arsenal.
Ri was meeting with Iran's Parliament speaker Ali Larijani on the third day of an official visit.
"The Americans utter beautiful words when negotiating and promise a very bright future but they deliver on none of their commitments when it comes to action," Larijani said.
Ri arrived in Tehran on the same day as the United States reimposed sanctions after abandoning a 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Iran.
North Korea’s foreign minister highlighted his country’s cordial and old-age relations with Iran, expressing satisfaction with growing bilateral relations amid US economic pressure on both states.
Ri praised growing Tehran-Pyongyang relations while both countries are facing similar problems caused by U.S. sanctions and thanked the Islamic Republic for standing by his country in difficult times.
Larijani, for his part, underlined the need for boosting bilateral cooperation with North Korea.