The United States says the North Korean government bears key responsibility for the conditions of food security in its own country.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Thursday that Pyongyang should also assume primary responsibility for the “horrible isolation its people live in as a result of its policies which flout United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

Nuland said the best route for the North would be to engage with the international community, adding such a move would enable trade and an open system for the impoverished North. She said that Washington is still evaluating whether to provide food aid to North Korea.

On the North’s willingness to allow ethnic Koreans living in the U.S. to hold temporary reunions with their relatives in the North, Nuland said the issue would be "part of a larger discussion the U.S. is having with the North.”