North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that he is open to talks with the U.S. if Washington drops its longstanding demand that Pyongyang relinquish its nuclear weapons, state-run media said Monday, as South Korea’s president threw his support behind a possible deal on freezing the North’s nuclear program.
“If the United States abandons its delusional obsession with denuclearization and acknowledges reality, seeking genuine peaceful coexistence with us, we have no reason not to meet,” the North’s Rodong Sinmun daily quoted Kim as saying in a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly, the country's rubber-stamp parliament, on Sunday.
Denuclearization is an outdated approach to talks, Kim said, pointing to his country’s 2023 decision to enshrine its status as a nuclear power in its constitution.
“The cunning preaching of our adversaries that we must abandon our nuclear weapons to prosper has already lost all persuasive power in the blood-soaked battlefields they themselves are raging across the world,” Kim said.
“The world knows well what the United States does after it forces others to give up their nuclear programs and disarm,” he added. “We will never lay down our nuclear weapons.”
These strident remarks stood in contrast to Kim's warm words for the U.S. president, who he met three times in 2018 and 2019.
"Personally, I still have fond memories of U.S. President Trump," Kim said, in what was seen as the first time the North Korean leader had signaled an openness to a return to summitry.
For his part, Trump has also been effusive about his “very good relationship” with Kim, saying that his administration can make “big progress” with North Korea. During talks with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the White House late last month, Trump said he hopes to meet the North Korean leader “this year.”
Trump could get a chance as soon as next month, when he is expected to travel to South Korea for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the city of Gyeongju. Trump and Kim last held talks in 2019 in a surprise meeting following a Group of 20 summit in the city of Osaka that saw him become the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea.
In an interview with the BBC published Monday, South Korea's Lee said he would support a deal between Trump and Kim in which the North agreed to freeze production of its nuclear weapons, rather than get rid of them.
Lee said such a move — which he termed "an interim emergency measure" — would be "a feasible, realistic alternative" to denuclearization for now.
"So long as we do not give up on the long-term goal of denuclearization, I believe there are clear benefits to having North Korea stop its nuclear and missile development," Lee was quoted as saying.
But it’s unclear how much sway Lee has in any return to talks.
Kim on Monday doubled down on his refusal to deal with Seoul, despite Lee’s entreaties that the two Koreas return to dialogue.
“We will not sit down with South Korea, nor will we engage in any joint activities,” Kim said in his speech. “We make it clear that we will not deal with them in any capacity.”
Pyongyang — which last year designated Seoul its “principal enemy” and ruled out reunification — has repeatedly called South Korea a “hostile state.”
Still, Trump has already signaled an openness to shifting his administration’s focus away from denuclearization by calling Pyongyang a "nuclear power," raising questions about whether he could pursue arms-reduction talks rather than again demanding Kim part with his nukes.
White House officials, however, have ruled out such a scenario, saying that Trump “will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term."
Any return to talks without denuclearization as at least an end goal would be a 180-degree shift in U.S. policy that would likely unnerve South Korea and Japan, which are squarely in the sights of North Korea’s vast missile arsenal.
Asked at a news conference Monday about Kim's remarks, Japan's top government spokesman refrained from directly commenting on the news, reiterating Tokyo's stance that North Korea's nuclear and missile programs represent a grave security threat to Japan and the international community and are "absolutely unacceptable."
"We have confirmed with the United States, on a number of occasions, our unwavering commitment to North Korea's complete denuclearization," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
However, Trump — who has made no secret of his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize — could see the risks of ditching the denuclearization demand as negligible, especially considering Kim’s vastly improved negotiating position.
In the six years since diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea broke down in 2019, Kim has called for a “limitless” expansion of his nuclear arms programs. The country is now estimated to have assembled around 50 nuclear warheads, while possessing enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more. It also has an array of formidable missiles — some even tested on the battlefield in Ukraine — that experts say are capable of evading defenses.
Kim also has little reason to seek relief from crushing U.N. and U.S. sanctions after ramping up ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and securing a much-needed lifeline in the form of fuel, food and access to advanced military equipment in exchange for sending North Korean troops to fight in Russia's war against Ukraine.
In Sunday’s speech, the North Korean leader appeared to acknowledge this leverage.
"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, adding that sanctions have provided his country with “a learning experience” that has made it stronger and more resilient.
“If the Western powers, led by the United States, remain mired in the delusion that ... they can pressure and defeat us through sanctions or shows of force, they are mistaken,” he added.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.