North Korea said on Sunday it would not use jailed US citizen as a "bargaining chip" with Washington, as it laid out conditions to revive a jointly-run business estate with its neighbor, the South.
North Korea said on Sunday it would not use jailed US citizen as a "bargaining chip" with Washington, as it laid out conditions to revive a jointly-run business estate with its neighbor, the South.
"Some media of the U.S. said that the DPRK (North Korea) tried to use Pae's case as a political bargaining chip. This is a ridiculous and wrong guess," a foreign ministry spokesman told the official KCNA news agency.
"The DPRK has no plan to invite anyone of the US as regards Pae's issue."
The North said Thursday it had sentenced Pae, known in the US as Kenneth Bae, to 15 years' hard labor for hostile acts aimed at toppling the communist regime.
The Korean-American tour operator was arrested in November as he entered the northeastern port city of Rason.
CONDITIONS TO REVIVE KAESONG
Meanwhile, Pyongyang demanded that South Korea drop all "military provocations" if it wants to revive the Kaesong In
dustrial Complex.
The North's National Defense Commission, its most powerful body, on Sunday again blamed the South for the suspension.
“If the South was truly worried about Kaesong's future, it "should take measures of stopping all the hostile acts and military provocations, the source of the prevailing situation", said a spokesman for the commission, which is chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un.
The spokesman's statement, on the Korean-language service of the official KCNA news agency, cited anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent across the border in balloons by conservative activists and defectors.
It also cited the South's preparations for an annual military exercise with its US ally scheduled for August.
"These are parts of confrontational actions and war practice taken by the enemy government when it is rambling that it wants to normalize the Kaesong complex," the spokesman said.
Pyongyang, accusing Seoul of sparking the military tension, banned entry to the Kaesong complex by South Koreans and pulled out all its 53,000 workers early last month, rejecting repeated calls by the South for talks.
