N. Korea berates Trump's policy as being the same as Obama's

SEOUL, March 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Monday criticized that the Trump administration is following its predecessor's failed "strategic patience" policy toward Pyongyang.

"No big differences are found between Obama's ruptured 'strategic patience' policy and the incumbent U.S. administration's (North Korea) policy," the Rodong Sinmun, a daily of the North's ruling Workers' Party, claimed in a commentary titled "A Wrong Policy Will Invite Ruin Only."

The assertion followed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's remarks during his recent visit to Seoul that the policy of strategic patience has ended.

Tillerson, instead, emphasized the need for a new approach to deal with the growing North Korean nuclear threat that would include more aggressive actions than those taken based on the strategic patience policy.

The Obama policy, which suggested that the United States could afford to wait for North Korea to make its decision to denuclearize, is being criticized as having allowed the North to buy time for nuclear and missile developments.

"Differences, if any, are only the addition of a military pressure to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons (on the Korean peninsula) to Obama's policy," the paper said.

"The new U.S. administration follows Obama's failed North Korea policy, although even a stupid animal would not fall into a hole again once it did so," the paper said.

The U.S. hostility towards the North, contrary to its wish, has simply further strengthened the North's self-defensive nuclear deterrent, the paper said.
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