With North Korean envoy Ri Gun preparing for an almost unheard of visit to the United States, top American officials are making it clear that the direct negotiations the Ri visit was designed to accomplish aren’t likely to lead to anything productive.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates condemned the nation, accusing them of “seeming” to be willing to sell any nuclear technologies they developed and said that the United States would never accept North Korea having nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the rhetoric up another step, vowing that the United States would never have normal relations with North Korea’s government unless they took “verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization.”

North Korea conducted a successful nuclear weapons test in May, having abandoned the denuclearization agreement after the United Nations condemned them in April.

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