SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea on Saturday escalated its attempt to create a rift between South Korea and the United States, as Washington sent mixed signals over whether it would tighten or relax sanctions on the North.
Ever since the summit between the North's leader, Kim Jong Un, and President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, late last month abruptly ended without a deal, North Korea has urged South Korea to distance itself from the United States and to push ahead with joint economic projects that have been held back by U.S.-led United Nations sanctions.
North Korea's official trade has been devastated by international sanctions imposed since 2016. The country has tried to circumvent them by importing refined fuel or exporting coal through ship-to-ship transfers on the high seas, a move banned under U.N. sanctions. It has also sought to undermine the sanctions by boosting economic cooperation with South Korea.
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea remains eager to boost inter-Korean economic ties, raising fears that he may steer his government away from international efforts to enforce sanctions against the North. But Moon's hands are tied unless the United States and North Korea reach an agreement on denuclearizing the North and Washington helps to ease sanctions.
On Saturday, DPRK Today, a North Korean government-run website, accused Moon's government of reneging on its promise to improve inter-Korean ties and giving priority to "cooperation with a foreign force" over "cooperation among the Korean nation."
"The South Korean authorities' behavior is deeply deplorable," it said. "The only things the South will get from cooperating with the U.S. will be a deepening subordination, humiliation and shame."
North Korean state media has been issuing similar messages in recent days, even denigrating Moon's efforts to mediate talks between his "American boss" and North Korea, and advising Moon's government to throw its policy "in a garbage can."
The North abruptly withdrew its staff from a joint inter-Korean liaison office on Friday.
"The South's authorities can't do anything without approval or instruction from the United States, so how do they think they can be a mediator or facilitator?" the North Korean website Meari said Friday. "They should know their place."
Moon has dedicated his diplomatic resources to facilitating dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, and has promoted building peace on the Korean Peninsula as his main policy goal. But his mediator's role has run into a wall since the breakdown of the Hanoi meeting between Trump and Kim.
He faced accusations that he had oversold Trump on Kim's willingness to give up his nuclear weapons, even as North Korea accused him of working on behalf of Washington.
On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department demonstrated Washington's determination to keep squeezing the North by designating for punitive measures two Chinese shipping companies that had helped North Korea evade sanctions.
South Korea was thrown into confusion after Trump tweeted that he ordered his government Friday to withdraw "additional large scale sanctions" against the North. The tweet was initially taken as overruling the Treasury's announcement the day before.
But U.S. officials later explained that Trump had been referring to additional North Korea sanctions that were under consideration but not yet formally issued.
South Korea's main opposition Liberty Korea Party said that Moon has been used as "a pawn" by Kim and had ended up creating a fission in the alliance with Washington.
A Section on 03/24/2019