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.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS