N. Korea hints at lifting moratorium on ICBM, nuclear tests, citing U.S. 'hostile policy'

SEOUL, Jan. 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party and ordered officials to reconsider all trust-building measures with the United States, according to Pyongyang's state media Thursday.

Kim also instructed officials to mull resuming all activities temporarily suspended, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. North Korea has maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and ICBM testing since late 2017.

"It gave an instruction to a sector concerned to reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative on a preferential ground and to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporally-suspended activities," the KCNA said.

The order follows a series of missile launches by the North, including two tests of what Pyongyang claims to be a hypersonic missile.

Last week, the Joe Biden administration announced fresh sanctions on six North Koreans involved in the regime's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.
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