With their working-level negotiations likely to be resumed in the near future, Pyongyang is putting pressure on Washington to take some advance measures to guarantee the regime's security and lift the sanctions on it.  

In a statement released on Monday, the director-general of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry’s department of U.S. affairs said discussions on denuclearization can be made only when threats and hurdles to the security and development of the regime are removed “neatly and undoubtedly.”

Expecting the working-level negotiations will likely occur within several weeks, the North Korean official hoped that it will become a “good meeting” and argued that whether the forthcoming talks will present a crisis or an opportunity is solely up to the U.S. to decide.