Seoul (AFP)

North Korea warned Friday that it would remain the biggest "threat" to the United States and attacked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying he was "skeptical" about negotiating with the Secretary of State. State, qualified as "irreducible toxin".

"We are ready for dialogue and confrontation," North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said in a statement.

"The United States is sadly mistaken if it still thinks to remain engaged in a confrontation with the RPCN (People's Republic of North Korea, ed) with sanctions, and not to finish with this posture," the statement said.

"We will remain the biggest + threat for the United States for a long time and will obviously understand what they must do for denuclearization," he adds.

North Korea has been firing a number of short-range missiles in recent weeks to express disapproval of the joint US-South Korean military exercises, which it sees as the general rehearsal for an invasion.

Bilateral talks have stalled since the failure of the second summit in Hanoi in February between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The two leaders met again in June at the border in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has separated the two states since the end of the Korean War (1950-53).

The meeting reopened talks on the Pyongyang nuclear program a little over a year after their first Singapore summit.

Visiting Seoul this week, US special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, said the US was "ready to start talks" as soon as they get "news" from Pyongyang .

About Mike Pompeo, the North Korean minister said Friday in his statement: "He is really impudent enough to utter such rash words that have no other result than to leave us disappointed and skeptical about knowing if we can solve any problem with such a guy. "

This charge against Mr. Pompeo comes after the latter said, in the Washington Examiner, that if the North Korean leader does not decide to denuclearize, the United States "will maintain the sanctions that are the hardest in the world. 'history".

Donald Trump, revealing on August 10 the contents of a letter addressed to him by Kim Jong Un, had assured on Twitter that the North Korean leader wanted to resume the negotiations at the end of the joint military exercises.

Nearly 30,000 US servicemen are deployed in South Korea.

© 2019 AFP