Kim Jong Un has revealed he still has good memories of Donald Trump as he urged Washington to drop its demand on his nation to surrender its nuclear weapons as a precondition for resuming long-stalled diplomacy.
Speaking to Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament on Sunday, he stressed he has no intention of ever resuming dialogue with rival South Korea, a key US ally that helped broker his previous summits with Mr Trump during the American president’s first term.
The North Korean leader suspended virtually all cooperation with the South following the collapse of his second summit with Mr Trump in February 2019 over disagreements about US-led sanctions against the North.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have worsened in recent years as Mr Kim has accelerated his weapons build-up and aligned with Russia over the war in Ukraine.
His comments came as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung departed for New York to attend the UN General Assembly, where he is expected to address the nuclear tensions and call on North Korea to return to talks.
Mr Trump is also expected to visit South Korea next month to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, prompting media speculation that he may try to meet Mr Kim at the inter-Korean border, as they did during their third meeting in June 2019, which ultimately failed to salvage their nuclear diplomacy.
During his speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Mr Kim reiterated that he would never give up his nuclear weapons programme, which experts say he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival and the extension of his family’s dynastic rule.
In his speech, published by state media on Monday, he said: “The world already knows well what the United States does after forcing other countries to give up their nuclear weapons and disarm.
“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 revealed he still holds “good personal memories” of Mr Trump and that there is “no reason not to” resume talks with the US if Washington “abandons its delusional obsession with denuclearisation”.
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The North Korean leader has stepped up testing activities in recent years, demonstrating weapons of various ranges designed to strike the US mainland and US allies in Asia.
Analysts say his 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.
He 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.
North Korea has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of military equipment to Russia to help support President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
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Mr Kim visited Beijing earlier this month, sharing the spotlight with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mr Putin at a massive military parade.
Experts say Mr Kim’s rare foreign trip was likely intended to boost his leverage ahead of a potential resumption of talks with the US.
There’s growing concern in Seoul 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 US.
Such fears were amplified last year when Mr Kim declared 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.
