N. Korea says no plans to halt nuke tests even if U.S. stops drills

"As to our proposal last year to halt nuclear tests if the drills are stopped, the United States has already rejected it, so it is no longer valid," the official, who was introduced as Ri Thae Song, a vice director of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Beijing before returning to Pyongyang with the minister, Ri Su Yong, following a trip to New York.
The statement came despite a media report over the weekend suggesting North Korea is prepared to ease tensions depending on U.S. action.
"Stop the nuclear war exercises on the Korean Peninsula, then we shall also cease our nuclear tests," the minister was quoted as saying by the Associated Press on Saturday, in an exclusive interview, which was conducted while he was in the U.S. city for a U.N. signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Ri, who spoke on behalf of the foreign minister, said the AP story and other media reports of the interview are misleading and "do not correspond to the facts."
"Our countermeasures against U.S. hostile policies will be carried out in a more powerful manner," the official, who served as a spokesman for the foreign minister during his weeklong trip, said outside Beijing Capital International Airport.
His remarks were in line with what the Foreign Ministry said earlier this month.
"Due to the ever-escalating hostile acts of the U.S., the nuclear issue of (North Korea) has long been away from its negotiating table," official media quoted a spokesman for the ministry as saying on April 12. "(North Korea's) proposal that it would put a moratorium on its nuclear test in return for the U.S. halt to the joint war drills would no longer be valid as the latter turned it down."