Opinion piece came two days after US President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip to North Korea by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
North Korea’s main newspaper accused the United States on Sunday of staging military drills to prepare an invasion while at the same time pursuing dialogue with a smile on its face.
Rodong Sinmun, the official mouthpiece of the Workers’ Party of Korea, cited alleged US troop movements in the region which it called “extremely provocative and dangerous” and said they threatened to derail the dialogue between the United States and North Korea.
The US military called the accusation “far-fetched”.
The opinion piece came two days after US President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip to North Korea by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, citing a lack of progress in getting North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons.
The Rodong Sinmun piece did not mention Trump by name, nor the decision to cancel Pompeo’s trip. Media controlled by the Pyongyang regime has been careful not to criticise Trump directly since his June 12 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, reserving its occasional ire for Pompeo and other members of the administration.
But the timing of the piece may be more than coincidence.
Rodong Sinmun cited a South Korean radio broadcast claiming that US “special units” had recently flown to the Philippines, arguing this was a drill simulating “infiltration into Pyongyang”.
It also claimed that the USS Michigan nuclear submarine had transported “Green Berets, Delta Force and other special units” from Okinawa, Japan to the Jinhae naval base in South Korea in late July or early August.
