DPRK top leader urges US to end hostile policy

PYONGYANG -- Kim Jong Un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), has called on the United States to end its hostile policy towards Pyongyang, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday.

At the on-going eighth Party Congress, Kim said that halting hostilities by Washington will be the key to future relations between DPRK and the United States.

However, Washington's policy against Pyongyang won't change regardless of who rules the White House, Kim was quoted as saying.

This is the first response by the DPRK to the new US government as US President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated on Jan 20.

The DPRK's external political activities going forward should be focused on suppressing and subduing the United States, the basic obstacle and the biggest enemy against DPRK's revolutionary development, said the KCNA report.

On his new policy on South Korea, Kim said bilateral relations could return to three years ago when a peace mood was created "at any time," but this only depends on Seoul's attitude.

Relations with Seoul went cold starting June 2020 after Pyongyang demolished an inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong in retaliation for Seoul's failure to stop activists from sending anti-DPRK leaflets into the North.

The congress, which opened on Jan 5, continued on Friday and the participants discussed the first agenda item "Review of the work of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea", the KCNA reported.