An official at North Korea's foreign ministry on Thursday urged the U.S. to heed its “repeated warnings” about potentially withdrawing from nuclear negotiations, in a statement which also condemned the South Korean government’s recent attempts to mediate dialogue between Pyongyang and Seoul.

The Korean-language statement, carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), sees director general of the Department of American Affairs at the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Kwon Jong Gun accuse the U.S. of “carrying out hostile acts against us more despicably than ever before in reality."