North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has suggested that he is open to talks with the US if Washington stops insisting that his country give up its nuclear weapons.
“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearising us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” Kim said in a speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang on Sunday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The North Korean leader also commented on US President Donald Trump, whom he met three times during Trump’s first presidency, saying: “Personally, I still have fond memories of US President Trump.”
Kim’s comments come after both Trump and South Korean leader Lee Jae-myung expressed their willingness to meet with their North Korean counterpart at a meeting at the White House last month.
“Someday, I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me,” Trump said at the time, adding that he knew Kim, whose family has ruled North Korea for three generations, “better than anybody, almost, other than his sister”.
Lee, who has been vocally supportive of thawing relations with his country’s northern neighbour since taking office in June, said at the same meeting that he hoped the US president would “build a Trump Tower” in North Korea “so that I can play golf there”.
Despite overtures from Lee and Trump, North Korea has been critical of joint military drills between the US and South Korea, with Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, describing them as a “reckless” invasion rehearsal.
A more realistic goal
In recent interviews with the BBC and the Reuters news agency, Lee has also expressed an openness to negotiating his country’s stance on North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Lee said he would be open to a more “realistic” goal of North Korea agreeing to stop acquiring more nuclear weapons, rather than continuing with “fruitless attempts” at making it give up its existing arsenal.
“So long as we do not give up on the long-term goal of denuclearisation, I believe there are clear benefits to having North Korea stop its nuclear and missile development,” Lee said.
In an interview with Reuters, also published on Sunday, Lee acknowledged that sanctions had ultimately failed to deter Pyongyang, which today is adding an estimated 15 to 20 nuclear weapons to its arsenal every year.
“The reality is that the previous approach of sanctions and pressure has not solved the problem; it has worsened it,” Lee said.
Addressing the Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang on Sunday, Kim also said that sanctions had only made his country stronger and more resilient, despite reports that the nation of some 26 million people has long suffered from a food crisis.
“There will never be, and will never ever be for eternity, any negotiations with enemies of exchanging some things out of some obsession with lifting sanctions,” Kim said.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on North Korea for pursuing its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes close to 20 years ago.
But Kim Jong Un last year promised to “exponentially” boost his nation’s nuclear arsenal to defend itself against “hostile” forces.
The push comes as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) Yearbook warned in its latest annual report that the world is at risk of a new arms race among the nine nuclear-armed states: China, France, Israel, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US.
Meanwhile, Kim’s signalling of an openness to meeting with Washington comes after he met with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, in Beijing earlier this month for a military parade marking 80 years since the end of World War II.
In comments apparently addressed to Xi regarding the Beijing celebrations, Trump said on his Truth Social platform: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America.”
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