The North Korean statement, signed by a researcher at a Foreign Ministry institute, said the charges could undermine possible agreements reached between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June.

AD

“The U.S. is totally mistaken if it seeks to gain anything from us through preposterous falsehoods and highhandedness,” Han Yong Song at the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

AD

The Justice Department announced charges last week against Park Jin Hyok, accusing him of hacking on behalf of the North Korean military. He was also accused of involvement in an attempt to steal $1 billion from the Bangladesh Bank in 2016, as well as in the spread of the WannaCry 2.0 virus that affected more than 230,000 computers in 150 countries last year.

But the North Korean statement said Park was a “nonentity” and called the charges “vicious slander and another smear campaign.”

AD

“The U.S. should seriously ponder over the negative consequences of circulating falsehoods and inciting antagonism against the DPRK that may affect the implementation of the joint statement adopted at the DPRK-U.S. summit,” the statement said, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last week, Kim reportedly told a team of South Korean envoys that he continued to trust Trump. The White House said Monday that Trump had received a letter from Kim requesting another summit meeting and that planning was already in motion to make it happen.

AD

But the war of words over the hacking charges showed the gulf of distrust that continues to exist between the governments of the two nations.

AD

The Justice Department says North Korea-linked hackers wiped data from thousands of Sony computers in 2014 and stole confidential emails, while also targeting AMC theaters, which planned to show a satirical film depicting Kim’s assassination.

The North Korean statement said those incidents “had nothing to do with us.”

Nevertheless, the fact that the statement was signed by a researcher rather than a Foreign Ministry official somewhat lessened its impact.

Meanwhile, relations between North and South Korea continue their dramatic improvement.

On Friday, the two Koreas opened a joint liaison office just north of their heavily militarized border as part of efforts to facilitate better communication, officials said.

AD

AD

The office was launched in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and is the first of its kind since the division of the Korean Peninsula that followed World War II. It is a potential first step toward the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations between the two Koreas, whose 1950-53 war ended in an armistice but not a formal peace treaty.

It comes days ahead of the third summit between the countries’ leaders this year.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will travel to Pyongyang on Tuesday for a three-day summit. He says he hopes to help serve as a mediator between the United States and North Korea.

The liaison office will be staffed by about 20 South Korean officials and a similar number from the North. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday but staffed around-the-clock, according to a joint agreement signed by both sides.

AD

AD

Over the years, the two Koreas have had various telephone lines and other channels to communicate with each other, but they have occasionally even resorted to using bullhorns to shout across their heavily mined and defended border. It was only in January that they reopened a hotline that had been dormant for two years at their shared border village of Pan­munjom.