PYONGYANG has warned that the latest US sanctions could derail plans for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, expressing “shock and indignation” at the move.

The North Korean administration accused the US State Department of being “bent on bringing relations back to the status of last year, which was marked by exchanges of fire.”

It was responding to sanctions placed on three senior officials, including head of state Kim Jong Un’s deputy Choe Ryong Hae, Security Minister Jong Kyong Thaek and propaganda official Pak Kwang Ho.

The move to seize the assets of the North Korean officials followed a report from the US State Department presented to Congress as part of a regular progress update on negotiations between the two countries.

Relations appeared to have thawed after outbursts from US President Donald Trump and Mr Kim had raised fears of nuclear annihilation. A historic summit in Singapore in June marked a significant breakthrough with a pledge to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, although the agreement was criticised for its lack of detail.

However, since then hostilities have escalated again and a scheduled meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea’s Kim Yong Chol was cancelled in November.

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said: “Human rights abuses in North Korea remain among the worst in the world and include extrajudicial killings, forced labour, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence.”

North Korea has urged the US to return to the confidence-building efforts that followed the Singapore summit, warning that the sanctions and escalating of tensions was “a grave miscalculation.”

“The US should realise before it is too late that ‘maximum pressure’ would not work against us,” Pyongyang said.