North Korea Says It is Not Interested In Talks with the US Even without Preconditions

I expect the engagement crowd will say that the Kim regime doesn’t really mean what they say:

North Korea on Tuesday rejected U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s latest proposal for dialogue without preconditions, saying that it has no interest in Washington’s scheme to make it give up its nuclear program.

Tillerson said last week that the U.S. is ready to begin talks with North Korea “without preconditions” in a possible shift of U.S. policy. But days later, he said that the North should halt its “threatening behavior” before talks can begin, backpedaling on his previous remarks.

The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), said that nothing has changed in its stance of pursuing nuclear weapons, regardless of whether Washington has offered talks without strings attached.

“The U.S. is trying to shift responsibility for tensions on the Korean Peninsula to us with its dialogue offensive,” the newspaper said in a commentary. “The move is seen as being intended to set the tone for manipulating new U.N. Security Council resolutions that may include a maritime blockade if we do not accept dialogue aimed at discussing the abandonment of our nuclear weapons.”

North Korea made it clear that it will not put its nuclear weapons and missiles on the negotiation table if the U.S. does not ditch its hostile policy toward Pyongyang.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I believe in believing what the Kim regime says.  It is pretty clear they only want to talk if the US ditches its hostile policies.  What that means is that the Kim regime wants the sanctions to go away and a peace treaty to be offered as part of negotiations.  This basically rewards the regime for bad behavior before the talks have even begun.  From their perspective this strategy has worked in the past and I guess they figure at some point the Trump administration will reward them as well.