North Korea said Tuesday that while the relationship between its leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump is “not bad,” the United States must accept the isolated country as a nuclear weapons state.
Dismissing the idea of further talks on denuclearization, Kim’s powerful sister said that reality has changed since Trump’s first term in office.
“The year 2025 is neither 2018 nor 2019,” Kim Yo Jong, who is believed to speak for her brother, said in a statement carried by North Korean state news agency KCNA.
“The recognition of the irreversible position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state and the hard fact that its capabilities and geopolitical environment have radically changed should be a prerequisite for predicting and thinking everything in the future,” she said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
While Kim acknowledged that the “personal relationship” between Trump and Kim is “not bad,” she said that using it to pursue North Korea’s denuclearization would be seen as “mockery.”
“If the U.S. fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK-U.S. meeting will remain as a ‘hope’ of the U.S. side,” she said in the statement, which did not mention Trump by name.
Trump, who has often talked about his “great relationship” with Kim, met with the North Korean leader in person three times and has expressed openness to the resumption of diplomacy.
Though Trump and Kim signed an agreement in principle on denuclearization at their Singapore summit in 2018, talks broke down the following year after the U.S. refused to grant North Korea sanctions relief.
North Korea has since advanced its nuclear and ballistic missile programs through weapons testing and a security partnership with Russia — changes alluded to by Kim.
The State Department said last month that the Trump administration remained committed to achieving the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea.
The White House did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment overnight. A White House official told Reuters that denuclearization remained the goal.
The office of South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung, said Tuesday that South Korea supports the idea of renewed U.S.-North Korea talks.
South Korea and the U.S. “will continue to engage in close communication and cooperation on overall North Korea policy, including the potential resumption of U.S.-North Korea dialogue,” it said in a statement.
Kim’s statement was her second in as many days, after she rejected efforts at outreach by Lee, who is seen as more open to repairing relations with the North than his conservative predecessor.
“No matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed,” she said in the statement Monday.
She also criticized South Korea’s “blind trust” in its longtime U.S. alliance and upcoming joint military exercises that North Korea sees as a rehearsal for invasion.
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who is in charge of handling relations with the North, said Monday that he would recommend reducing or suspending the U.S.-South Korea drills to promote engagement with Pyongyang.
The rare twin statements from Kim Yo Jong reflect “North Korea’s intent to take an initiative in leading the conversation on the Korean Peninsula issue, whether through dialogue or confrontation,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told NBC News in an interview.
The message to South Korea used relatively moderate language, Yang said, while the U.S. message implied the potential for talks on nuclear arms reduction rather than denuclearization, suggesting North Korea is trying to gauge the response from both countries.
The fact that Kim acknowledged the relationship between Trump and her brother “suggests both a desire to prevent further deterioration of the situation and a possible signal for another summit,” Yang said.
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