North Korea issued a critical commentary on the U.S.-South Korea summit fact sheet and the joint communique of the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM). It was the North's first official response, coming four days after the fact sheet and the SCM joint communique were released.
In a commentary on the 18th, the Korean Central News Agency said, "The jointly agreed documents reveal the U.S.-South Korea will to confront, intent on remaining hostile to our state to the end, and lay bare the future of the U.S.-South Korea alliance, which will evolve into something even more dangerous," stating this position.
In a lengthy, roughly 3,800-character commentary, North Korea set out detailed positions point by point on various parts of the fact sheet and the SCM joint communique.
First, it said this U.S.-South Korea summit was "the moment when the Trump administration's policy line on North Korea became most clearly exposed," and that the United States, together with South Korea, committing at the summit level to "complete denuclearization" was "a concentrated expression of the will to confront by denying our constitution to the very end."
It added, "With this, a final period has at last been put to the contentious debates among media and experts over the true colors and direction of the current U.S. administration's policy toward the DPRK."
In particular, regarding the use of the phrase "complete denuclearization of North Korea" instead of "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" by the United States and South Korea, it said this "denied the reality and existence of our state."
It went on to say, "Nevertheless, the United States babbling about implementing past DPRK-U.S. agreements that it unilaterally scrapped and nullified is the height of shamelessness."
In the fact sheet, the United States and South Korea expressed an intent to implement the 2018 Singapore North Korea-U.S. summit agreement and indicated a willingness to resume dialogue. However, North Korea effectively made clear that as long as "denuclearization" is raised, there will be no dialogue.
On South Korea's approval to build a nuclear-powered submarine, North Korea said it was a "grave development of events that, beyond the Korean Peninsula region, destabilizes the military security landscape of the Asia-Pacific and creates a situation of nuclear loss of control on a global scale."
It said South Korea's possession of a nuclear-powered submarine is a stepping stone toward "its own nuclear armament," adding that it is "bound to trigger a 'nuclear domino effect' in the region and spark a fiercer arms race."
However, North Korea issued its response to the fact sheet and the SCM joint communique in the form of a Korean Central News Agency commentary, rather than an official statement or press release under an official's name, and did not directly criticize President Trump or President Lee Jae-myung by name.
The commentary was not carried in Rodong Sinmun, the internal outlet read by residents.