US ready for action if NKorea delivers 'Christmas gift'

North Korea has set a year-end deadline for the United States to change what it says is a policy of hostility amid a stalemate in efforts to make progress to end its nuclear program and establish lasting peace. Pyongyang warned Washington last week over a 'Christmas gift' as the deadline looms.

Washington: National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien has said that the United States is ready to take action as North Korea delivered a threat.

O'Brien's remarks come in response to Pyongyang threatened a 'Christmas gift' unless Washington did not provide concession on denuclearisation talks by its self imposed year-end deadline.

"If Kim Jong Un takes that approach, we'll be extraordinarily disappointed and we'll express that disappointment," O'Brien said.

North Korea has set a year-end deadline for the United States to change what it says is a policy of hostility amid a stalemate in efforts to make progress to end its nuclear program and establish lasting peace. Pyongyang warned Washington last week over a 'Christmas gift' as the deadline looms.

Kim and Trump have met three times since June 2018 but there has been no substantive progress in dialogue and the government in Pyongyang has demanded that international sanctions be lifted first.

Last week, the North Korean state media said that the US would "pay dearly" for taking issue with Pyongyang's human rights record and that Washington's "malicious words" would only aggravate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The US envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun visited South Korea and China, last week, making a public and direct call to North Korea to return to the negotiating table.

North Korea has conducted several test-launches of short-range missiles in the months since.