Photo: AFP

North Korea said on Sunday there has been no progress in the North Korea-US relations, and hostilities that could lead to an exchange of fire have ­continued, according to North Korea's state news agency KCNA.

In a statement under the name of Chairman of the Korea-Asia Pacific Peace Committee Kim Yong-chol, KCNA said that it would be mistaken for the US to ignore a year-end deadline on US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's "close personal relations."

Kim Jong-un has set an end-of-the-year deadline for denuclearization talks with Washington.

Kim Yong-chol was the ­nuclear talks envoy to the US for the discussions between the two countries before the second summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un in Vietnam in February ended in failure.

Kim Yong-chol said the US has been pressuring North ­Korea in a "more crafty and vicious way" instead of heeding North Korea's call for Washington to adopt a new approach, adding that the US has been persistently pushing other countries to impose UN sanctions on North Korea.

The statement quoted Kim Yong-chol as saying he hopes that US-North ­Korean relations do not underscore that "there are permanent foes but no permanent friends."

The statement comes just days after North Korea asked South Korea to discuss removal of its facilities from the North's resort of Mount Kumgang, a key symbol of cooperation 

that Pyongyang recently criticized as "shabby" and "capitalist."