The rogue state says it wants an end to "hostile policies," but is still developing its nuclear program.

The DPRK has signaled several times over the course of the summer that it is reviewing its nuclear policy and that a central feature of the review is connected with the "hostile policy" of the United States. Against this backdrop, North Korea's foreign ministry released a lengthy statement last Friday. The statement did not contain any surprises.

Instead, it provided a straightforward explanation of how North Korea sees the world, arguing that despite a stream of U.S. assurances over the course of the past two decades, a U.S. attitude of hostility toward the DPRK has prevented confrontation from being resolved. (Of course, what stands behind the argument is the unwavering decades long opposition that U.S. policymakers have held toward North Korea's nuclear development.)

One point the memorandum makes well is that the nuclear issue was not the origin of U.S.-DPRK confrontation and that "from the very beginning, the U.S. defined the DPRK as an enemy and refused to recognize its sovereignty." The North Korean foreign ministry argues that the United States opposed the DPRK from the very beginning and refused to establish diplomatic relations with Pyongyang while establishing relations with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries in Eastern Europe. The United States and the DPRK are still technically at war. In other words, the North Korean nuclear problem is really just one symptom of a deeper predicament that characterizes U.S.-DPRK relations. This characterization signals the possibility of yet another North Korean effort to engage with the United States on peace talks rather than on nuclear talks.