North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his government to be prepared for both dialogue and confrontation with the administration of US President Joe Biden — but more for confrontation, state media reported yesterday, following calls by the US and others for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and return to talks.
The statement indicates that Kim will likely push to strengthen his nuclear arsenal and increase pressure on Washington to give up what North Korea considers a hostile US policy, although he would also prepare for talks to resume, experts say.
During an ongoing meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee on Thursday, Kim analyzed in detail policy tendencies of the Biden administration and clarified unspecified steps to be taken in relations with Washington, the Korean Central News Agency said.
Photo: AFP / KCNA VIA KNS
Kim “stressed the need to get prepared for both dialogue and confrontation, especially to get fully prepared for confrontation in order to protect the dignity of our state and its interests for independent development, and to reliably guarantee the peaceful environment and the security of our state,” the report said.
In 2018 and 2019, Kim held a series of summits with then-US president Donald Trump to discuss his advancing nuclear arsenal, but their negotiations fell apart after Trump rejected Kim’s calls for extensive sanctions relief in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.
The Biden administration has worked to formulate a new approach on North Korea’s nuclear program that it describes as “calibrated and practical.”
Details of his North Korea policy have not been publicized, but US officials have suggested that Biden would seek a middle ground between Trump’s direct meetings with Kim and former US president Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” to curb the nuclear program.
Earlier this week, G7 leaders issued a statement calling for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and “the verifiable and irreversible abandonment” of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
They also called on North Korea to engage and resume dialogue.
US Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim is to visit Seoul tomorrow for a trilateral meeting with South Korean and Japanese officials.
His travel emphasizes the importance of the trilateral cooperation in working toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the US Department of State said.
Kim Jong-un has recently threatened to enlarge his nuclear arsenal and build high-tech weapons targeting the US mainland if Washington refused to abandon its hostile policy on North Korea.
In March, the North Korean military performed its first short-range ballistic missile tests in a year. However, North Korea maintains a moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests — an indication that Kim Jong-un still wants to keep prospects for diplomacy alive.
Analyst Cheong Seong-chang at South Korea’s private Sejong Institute said that North Korea would likely return to talks, but it would not accept a call for immediate, complete denuclearization.
North Korea might accede to a proposal to freeze its atomic program and partially reduce its nuclear arsenal in phased steps if the Biden administration relaxes sanctions and suspend its regular military drills with South Korea, he said.
South Korean Ministry of Unification spokesman Cha Duck-chul said that it is closely monitoring North Korea’s ongoing political meeting and that it wants to re-emphasize the best way to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula is through dialogue.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS