North Korea warned Thursday it may be forced to resume its nuclear program unless the United States lifts economic sanctions against it.
It was the latest in a series of threats by the communist nation to reactivate a nuclear program suspected of developing atomic weapons that was frozen under an agreement with the United States in 1994.
An unidentified North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Pyongyang’s decision hinged on a scheduled Aug. 21 meeting in New York between senior U.S. and North Korean diplomats.
The spokesman cited Washington’s continued hostility and its failure to promptly fulfill its part of the 1994 agreement to supply 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually and ease economic sanctions.
The United States has promised it will seek to make up the fuel oil shortfall.
