A North Korean official has for the first time since the Singapore summit mooted the idea of Pyongyang resuming overt nuclear development, a statement published by official state media showed on Friday.

Responding to Washington’s ongoing public aversion to North Korea sanctions relief, a director of the foreign ministry-linked Institute for American Studies warned that Pyongyang may reconsider Kim Jong Un’s April 2018 directive to focus solely on economic development.

“If the U.S. keeps behaving arrogant without showing any change in its stand…the word “pyongjin” (simultaneously conducting economic construction and building up nuclear forces) may appear again and the change of