SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea issued a veiled threat to increase its nuclear arsenal if U.S. officials do not quickly agree to the one-on-one talks that the communist regime is demanding.

The regime’s impatience came days after its No. 2 nuclear negotiator Ri Gun came away from meetings with Washington envoy Sung Kim without an agreement to hold bilateral talks.

"If the U.S. is not ready to sit at a negotiating table with the (North), it will go its own way," the North’s Foreign Ministry said Monday in a statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The statement did not elaborate, but it was widely seen as a warning that the North will bolster its nuclear stockpile — a brinksmanship tactic that the communist nation has often employed.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly did not comment on the North’s statement, though he told reporters Monday that Kim "had very useful discussions" with Ri.