North Korea slams U.S. despite Trump's appeasing words

SEOUL, Jan. 8 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Monday continued its harsh rhetoric aimed at the United States, despite U.S. President Donald Trump's recent conciliatory remarks that alluded to dialogue with the North.

On Saturday, Trump said that he is willing to directly speak with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and that he hopes the two Koreas will discuss "more than just the Olympics" in upcoming inter-Korean talks on the North's participation in the Winter Olympic Games, to be held in the South Korean alpine town of PyeongChang. The meeting is set for Tuesday.

"The imperialist forces, led by the United States, are violently infringing upon other countries' sovereignty and slaughtering peaceful residents," the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said in a story titled, "North Korea's Steadfast Stance on Foreign Policies."

"Today's international situation is calling for the fundamental overturn of an unequal world, in which plots to interfere in domestic affairs of other sovereign states are brazenly enforced by imperialist reactionary forces headed by the U.S., and basic principles in international relations are overtly ignored," the paper said.

"The U.S.-led unequal international order is now shaken by the roots by our Republic (the North) which has emerged as a new strategic state capable of posing an actual nuclear threat to the U.S. mainland," the Rodong Sinmun said.

Commenting on Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the daily called him "a premium war dealer who destroys the world peace."

The U.S. is intensifying the international situation by exporting weapons, it added.

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