SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned on Sunday that if the United States continued to escalate its sanctions and human rights campaign against the North, that approach could permanently shatter any chance of denuclearizing the country.

Washington is holding fast to its policy of exerting “maximum” economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, even though President Trump has claimed progress in denuclearizing the North since his meeting with its leader, Kim Jong-un, in June in Singapore.

In the months after the Trump-Kim meeting, Washington has continued to crack down on companies, individuals and ships accused of engaging in such banned activities as money laundering, cyberattacks and ship-to-ship transfer of fuel on North Korea’s behalf.

On Sunday, North Korea voiced its growing frustration, as Washington persisted in its efforts to squeeze the country with additional sanctions over its dismal rights record. On Monday the Treasury Department blacklisted three top aides to Mr. Kim over serious rights abuses and censorship.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that if senior State Department and other American officials believed they could force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons by increasing sanctions and their “human rights racket to an unprecedented level,” it would be the “greatest miscalculation.”

Instead, the statement added, “it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula forever — a result desired by no one.” The statement, issued in the name of the policy research director of the North’s Institute for American Studies, was carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The warning came amid a prolonged stalemate in negotiations between North Korea and the United States over the terms of denuclearization. In his meeting with Mr. Trump in June, Mr. Kim committed to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” In return, Mr. Trump promised a peace regime on the peninsula, as well as security guarantees for “new” relations with North Korea.

Mr. Trump claimed that the North Korean nuclear crisis had been “largely solved” with the summit meeting. Since June, the North Koreans have refrained from criticizing Mr. Trump, whose impulsive and flamboyant negotiating style, analysts said, was favored by the North Koreans.

But the North has become increasingly angry at American negotiators, as working-level talks have bogged down over who should do what first in putting the broadly worded Singapore agreement into action. On Sunday, the North Korean institute accused officials from the State Department and other United States agencies of trying to sabotage the summit deal between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump.

Washington is demanding a full declaration of the North’s nuclear assets for future inspections, but the North insists that the United States first lift sanctions before it takes any steps toward denuclearizing. As the working-level talks stalled, the North Koreans called off a meeting that was to take place in New York last month between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a senior North Korean official.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has appeared to recognize the time-consuming nature of negotiating with the North, tweeting about North Korea far less than he used to. He has said that he and Mr. Kim are likely to meet a second time, in January or February. But he has also said he was “in no hurry” to negotiate with North Korea.

“Many people have asked how we are doing in our negotiations with North Korea — I always reply by saying we are in no hurry,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Friday. “We are doing just fine!”

In its latest sanctions against North Korea, the Treasury Department targeted Choe Ryong-hae, who leads the powerful Organization and Guidance Department of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and is widely considered the No. 2 official in Mr. Kim’s inner circles.

The other two top officials designated were Jong Kyong-thaek, North Korea’s minister of state security; and Pak Kwang-ho, the director of the party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department.

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