North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Myong Gil said on Saturday that nuclear negotiations with the U.S. have broken off–but the U.S. says otherwise.
After a meeting with U.S diplomat Stephen Biegun in Sweden, Kim told reporters that the talks had failed because the U.S. had shown up “empty-handed.”
“The negotiation did not live up to our expectations and broke down,” Kim said, according to South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency. “I am very displeased.”
“It is entirely because the U.S. has not discarded its old stance and attitude that the negotiation this time failed to produce any results,” he continued.
The situation has “sapped our appetite for negotiations” as a result, the North Korean envoy said.
However, the Trump administration apparently doesn’t agree with Kim’s assessment of the meeting.
“The early comments from the DPRK delegation do not reflect the content or the spirit of today’s 8 1/2 hour discussion,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “The U.S. brought creative ideas and had good discussions with its DPRK counterparts.”
