North Korea’s top nuclear envoy batted away a new offer from Washington to meet again in a statement on Thursday, declaring that the North has “no willingness” to negotiate with the Americans if the goal is merely to eke past a looming year-end deadline without a real, substantive end to the current diplomatic stalemate.

The remarks, made by Kim Myong Gil, a North Korean diplomat with years of experience dealing with American officials who is now the DPRK’s lead negotiator in talks the U.S., and published in the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), come amid repeated reminders from the