North Korea on Friday ruled out negotiations with Washington as long as joint U.S-South Korea military exercises continue, and said that Pyongyang's atomic weapons program would remain as a deterrent against a U.S. nuclear threat.
In an interview, Han Tae Song, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, brushed off the new sanctions that the Trump administration has said it is preparing, as well as the possibility of North Korea being added to a U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism.
South Korea and the United States agreed on Friday to keep working for a peaceful end to the North Korean nuclear crisis, but a U.S. envoy said it was difficult to gauge the reclusive North's intentions as there has been "no signal."