In a photograph supplied by the North Korean authorities, North Korean chief Kim Jong Un speaks throughout a parliament session on the Supreme Individuals’s Meeting, held on Sept. 20-21 in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Korean Central Information Company/Korea Information Service through AP
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Korean Central Information Company/Korea Information Service through AP
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean chief Kim Jong Un mentioned there is no such thing as a motive to not resume stalled negotiations with the US, if Washington drops its “obsession” with eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
It might seem like Kim’s clearest message of his willingness to satisfy with President Trump and revive diplomacy that has been stalled since 2019.
“If the U.S. drops its hole obsession with denuclearization and needs to pursue peaceable coexistence with North Korea based mostly on the popularity of actuality, there is no such thing as a motive for us to not sit down with the U.S.,” Kim informed a assembly of North Korea’s legislature, the Supreme Individuals’s Meeting.
“Personally, I nonetheless have good recollections of U.S. President Trump,” Kim added.
Kim and Trump met in Singapore, Vietnam and the inter-Korean border in 2018 and 2019, throughout Trump’s first administration, however failed to achieve a deal on denuclearization in alternate for lifting sanctions on Pyongyang.
Kim added that North Korea developed nuclear weapons to make sure its survival, and it has written its irreversible nuclear standing into its structure.
“The world already is aware of properly what the US does after forcing different international locations to surrender their nuclear weapons and disarm,” he mentioned. Kim and North Korean officers have repeatedly cited Iraq and Libya as states that the U.S. has disarmed earlier than backing management change.
President Trump informed visiting South Korean President Lee Jae Myung final month that he wish to meet with Kim Jong Un this yr. He has repeatedly referred to North Korea as a “nuclear energy.”
That means recognizing North Korea as a nuclear state, which is one thing earlier U.S. administrations and overseas governments have constantly opposed.
In a gathering in July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and South Korean International Minister Cho Hyun reaffirmed their governments’ intention to appreciate the denuclearization of North Korea.
Ought to Trump and Kim meet once more this yr, Trump would discover Kim in a far stronger negotiating place, with a bigger nuclear arsenal and stronger backing from Russia and China.
Kim illustrated this level at a army parade in Beijing this month, the place he appeared collectively for the primary time with Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s chief, Xi Jinping.
Whereas leaving the door open to the U.S., Kim appeared to slam one other one, on South Korea, shut.
“We are going to by no means unify with a rustic that entrusts its politics and protection to a overseas energy,” Kim mentioned, calling inter-Korean unification “pointless.”
Final yr, Kim mentioned North Korea was abandoning its long-held aim of eventual reunification with the South, and severed all communications.
Since taking workplace in June, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has prolonged olive branches to the North, akin to halting propaganda broadcasts into the North, however he has been repeatedly rebuffed.
Lee has outlined a plan for denuclearizing North Korea in three steps: freezing, decreasing and finally dismantling the North’s nuclear arsenal.
He says he’ll persist together with his efforts to revive peace and belief with the North, regardless of Pyongyang’s chilly shoulder.
