North Korea has hit back at the recent extensions to US sanctions (Image: GETTY)
The increase has been deemed an outright challenge to the summit between the two countries, according to Pyongyang’s foreign ministry. The White House last week extended six executive orders containing sanctions imposed over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes by one year. A foreign ministry spokesman denounced US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s remarks on Sunday that more than 80 percent of the North Korean economy has been affected by sanctions.
The spokesman also accused Washington of “viciously slandering” Pyongyang in its latest reports on human trafficking and religious freedom around the world.
He told the North’s official KCNA news agency: “This is a manifestation of the most extreme hostile acts by the US.
“All these speak clearly to the fact that the wild dream of the US to bring us to our knees by means of sanctions and pressure has not changed at all but grows even more undisguised."
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held their first, groundbreaking summit in Singapore in June last year, agreeing to foster new relations and work towards the
