Hopes are fading for a resolution to the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear programs as Pyongyang sticks to its adventurism and Washington seems unlikely to focus on the issue with Iran topping its denuclearization agenda.

The North has recently made a series of statements in which it insisted on developing what it calls “nuclear deterrence,” dampening the mood for the resumption of the long-stalled multilateral aid-for-denuclearization talks.

In a media interview, the North’s delegation at the U.N. said it would not engage in any negotiations over its denuclearization, including the six-party talks that involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

“North Korea will never put down its nuclear weapons first. Denuclearization should not be an objective of any negotiations,” an official of the delegation told the U.S.-funded broadcaster Voice of America in a report released on Wednesday.

“Denuclearization is something that we may consider only after the rest of the world including the U.S. is denuclearized.”

A day earlier, the Rodong Sinmun, the daily of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said that Pyongyang would not renounce its “byungjin line” ― a two-pronged policy of simultaneously pursuing the development of nuclear weapons and its economy, stressing that the policy would lead the country in a “direction of peace and prosperity.”

“We should hold fast to our invincible byungjin line, and conscientiously push for a struggle to build a strong and prosperous nation,” the paper said as it marked the second anniversary of the announcement of the policy line.

The North’s insistence on the development of nuclear arms has put a damper on the efforts to resume the six-party talks that have been stalled since late 2008.

The participating countries of the nuclear talks have agereed on the need for the resumption of negotiations, but they have differed over the preconditions: The North and China have called for an unconditional restart of the talks, while the U.S. and South Korea demanded that the North first prove its sincerity in its denuclearization commitments.

The recent series of statements by the North on its nuclear program apparently underscored Pyongyang’s growing discontent over Washington’s lack of attention to its repeated calls ― tacitly or explicitly ― for dialogue that would help ease its international isolation.

Robert Gallucci, who served as the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator during the 1993-1994 nuclear crisis involving the North, said that the Obama administration may have little room to deal with the North Korean issue as it would have to focus on defending a possible agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear activities that a Republican-controlled Congress might attack.

Iran and six powers ― the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany ― have been struggling to reach an agreement, with the nuclear negotiations going past a March 31 deadline and into overtime.

Gallucci noted during a meeting with reporters that the senior U.S. officials dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue were the same people in charge of the North Korean nuclear issue, meaning that the officials already have their hands full with the Iranian conundrum.

Experts mostly consider the Obama administration, whose term ends in January 2007, to be unlikely to take any bold steps to improve relations with the North in the near future, given that Pyongyang has lost Washington’s trust due to a series of provocative actions and its breach of past deals.

“President Obama was burned by the early missile and nuclear tests in 2009, by the sinking of the Cheonan and Yeonpyeongdo shelling, and also by the breakdown of the so-called Leap Day deal in 2013,” Stephan Haggard, a North Korea expert at the University of California, San Diego, said in an interview with The Korea Herald earlier this year.

Under the 2012 Leap Day deal, Pyongyang was to put a moratorium on its nuclear program, cease atomic and missile tests in exchange for 240,000 tons of food aid from Washington. But the deal was broken after the North launched a long-range rocket in April 2012.

“In addition, the Sony hack has played a much more significant role in U.S.-North Korea relations than is realized. … With a Republican Congress in place, initiatives from Washington are unlikely unless North Korea makes a bold move,” Haggard added.

With Washington unlikely to move to mend fences with Pyongyang, observers say that Seoul should take the initiative to create momentum on a series of North Korean issues. But Seoul has itself found it difficult to take any bold steps amid the North’s continued saber-rattling and menacing rhetoric.

Given the absence of dialogue with the isolated regime, Pyongyang is thought to be improving its nuclear weapons capabilities. The North has already conducted three nuclear tests ― in 2006, 2009 and 2013. It has also been pushing to develop a technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads to mount them on long-range ballistic missiles. The North has claimed that it has already succeeded in making “miniaturized, lighter” warheads.

The North is believed to possess some 40 kg of plutonium, according to Seoul’s 2014 defense white paper. To produce one nuclear bomb, around 6 kg of plutonium is required. The North is also running a uranium-based nuclear program.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)