Relations between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump are “not bad,” but any attempt to resume dialogue between the two countries should start with recognizing Pyongyang as a nuclear power, Kim’s sister said yesterday.
In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo-jong said the US should start acknowledging the North’s “radically changed” capabilities and that Pyongyang is open to “any option” to defend its national interest.
“I do not want to deny the fact that the personal relationship between the head of our state and the present US president is not bad,” she said.
Photo: AP
However, “it is worth taking into account the fact that the year 2025 is neither 2018 nor 2019,” she added.
Trump and Kim Jong-un met in person three times during the US president’s first term, but the discussions did not persuade the North Korean leader to slow the development of his nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang has since rebuffed the idea of sitting down with the US again and has emerged as a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, supporting his war on Ukraine.
Kim Yo-jong’s statement comes just a day after she rejected overtures for talks from South Korea, bristling at its joint military drills with the US.
South Korea’s point man for North Korea proposed adjusting the plans for future exercises to facilitate diplomacy.
“North Korea appears to be seeking to secure favorable conditions — such as recognition as a nuclear state — by leveraging President Trump’s willingness to engage in dialogue and the conciliatory tone” from the South, said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.
Still, Pyongyang has “no expectations of an immediate improvement in relations,” either with the US or the South, he said.
North Korea possesses a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons, developed in defiance of international sanctions. Its nuclear program includes both atomic bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the US mainland.
Pyongyang justifies its ambitions as a deterrent against perceived threats, especially from the US and South Korea.
In a shift from past rhetoric ruling out any engagement, the younger Kim said that the two countries should avoid going in a confrontational direction.
“If so, it would be advisable to seek another way of contact on the basis of such new thinking,” she said in the latest statement.
North Korea’s demand to drop calls for denuclearization is set to stoke concerns in the South and the wider region, especially at a time when Seoul faces growing pressure from Trump to pay more to host 28,500 US troops on its soil.
Any cracks in the alliance between Washington and Seoul or a weakening of the US commitment to extend deterrence risks spooking investors and boosting public support for South Korea to develop its own atomic weapons.
Kim Yo-jong has served as the public face of the North’s diplomatic messaging, especially when signaling shifts or hardline positions.
She is often described as Kim Jong-un’s de facto second-in-command on inter-Korean affairs.
Last year, North Korea released its first photos of a facility to enrich uranium for atomic bombs, indicating it no longer sees a need to hide a program it once furiously denied when then-US president George W. Bush first made the accusation in 2002.
Kim Jong-un toured a laboratory making weapons-grade nuclear materials in January again and said the country should strengthen its nuclear shield.
“If the US fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK-US meeting will remain a hope of the US side,” Kim Yo-jong said, referring to North Korea’s formal name.
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
RSS