North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed fond recollections of Donald Trump, while simultaneously urging Washington to abandon its prerequisite for denuclearisation before resuming long-stalled diplomatic talks.
Speaking to Pyongyang’s parliament on Sunday, Mr Kim underscored his firm stance against re-engaging with rival South Korea, a crucial US ally instrumental in brokering his previous summits with Mr Trump, according to state media reports on Monday.
Cooperation between South Korea and North Korea largely ceased following the collapse of Mr Kim’s second summit with Mr Trump in 2019, which faltered over disagreements concerning US-led sanctions against the North.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have since escalated, fuelled by Mr Kim’s accelerated weapons development and his alignment with Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
These remarks coincide with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s departure for the UN General Assembly in New York, where he is expected to address nuclear tensions and advocate for North Korea to return to negotiations.
Mr Trump is also slated to visit South Korea next month for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
This has prompted media speculation about a potential meeting between him and Mr Kim at the inter-Korean border, reminiscent of their third encounter in 2019, which ultimately failed to salvage their nuclear diplomacy efforts.
During his latest speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim reiterated that he would never give up his nuclear weapons program, which experts say he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival and the extension of his family’s dynastic rule.
“The world already knows well what the United States does after forcing other countries to give up their nuclear weapons and disarm,” Kim said. “We will never lay down our nuclear weapons (… )There will be no negotiations, now or ever, about trading anything with hostile countries in exchange for lifting sanctions.”
He said he still holds “good personal memories” of Trump from their first meetings and that there is “no reason not to” resume talks with the United States if Washington “abandons its delusional obsession with denuclearisation.”
Kim has stepped up testing activities in recent years, demonstrating weapons of various ranges designed to strike US allies in Asia and the US mainland.
Analysts say Kim’s nuclear push is aimed at eventually pressuring Washington to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and to negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength.
Kim is also trying to bolster his leverage by strengthening cooperation with traditional allies Russia and China, in an emerging partnership aimed at undercutting US influence.
He has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of military equipment to Russia to help support President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
He visited Beijing earlier this month, sharing the spotlight with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin at a massive military parade.
Experts say Kim’s rare foreign trip was likely intended to boost his leverage ahead of a potential resumption of talks with the United States.
There’s growing concern in Seoul that it could lose its voice in future efforts to defuse the nuclear standoff on the peninsula, as the North seeks to negotiate directly with the United States.
Such fears were amplified last year when Kim declared that he was abandoning North Korea’s long-standing goal of peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of the North’s constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy.
