North Korea ‘really angry’ at US as tensions rise, sources say

Washington CNN — North Korea is getting increasingly angry at the US, as talks are deadlocked and tensions between the two countries are on the rise, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN. ‘A standoff’ US military officials, foreign diplomats and sources familiar with developments say the two sides are locked in a standoff over who will make concessions first, that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is “really angry” about the US refusal to offer sanctions relief and that personal friction between US and North Korean negotiators may be slowing progress. A former CIA deputy division chief for Korea, Klingner pointed to North Korea’s recent threat to restart “building up nuclear forces” if the US didn’t ease sanctions, the fact that Pyongyang has yet to meet Pompeo’s Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, and that the two countries still haven’t agreed on the definition of basic terms such as “denuclearlization” – five months after Trump’s historic summit with Kim. A source familiar with the ongoing dance between officials in Washington and Pyongyang said that North Korea is “getting really angry” over the lack of any offer of sanctions relief from the US and that their stance is that the US “must make a move before we make the next one.” North Korea’s state media outlet KCNA said November 2: “We gave all things possible to the US, things it hardly deserves, by taking proactive and good-will measures, what remains to be done is the US corresponding reply. Kim’s regime has shuttered a missile engine testing facility; destroyed the entrances to its nuclear test site; and promised to close the Yongbyon nuclear facility, where North Korea is believed to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, if Washington takes what it calls “corresponding measures.” “There has been a move away from past administrations’ approach to North Korea in terms of ‘we will give you a little here if you give us a little there’ … kind of a tit-for-tat piece … we haven’t seen that work in the past, so the President is insistent on holding the full pressure campaign until he gets the full denuclearization,” a US official told CNN.