North Korea says Trump must accept new nuclear reality

SEOUL – North Korea said on July 29 that the US must accept that reality has changed since the countries’ summit meetings in the past, and no future dialogue would end its nuclear programme, state media KCNA reported.

Ms Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who is believed to speak for her brother, said she conceded that the personal relationship between Mr Kim and US President Donald Trump “is not bad”.

But if Washington intended to use a personal relationship as a way to end the North’s nuclear weapons programme, the effort would only be the subject of “mockery”, Ms Kim said in a statement carried by KCNA.

“If the US fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK-US meeting will remain as a ‘hope’ of the US side,” she said. DPRK is short for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea’s capabilities as a nuclear weapons state and the geopolitical environment have radically changed since Mr Kim and Mr Trump held talks three times during the US President’s first term, she said. “Any attempt to deny the position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state... will be thoroughly rejected.”

Highlighting the improving ties between North Korea and Russia, another KCNA report noted the resumption of the first direct passenger flight between Pyongyang and Moscow in decades that arrived in the North Korean capital on July 28. The flight resumed “amid the daily-growing many-sided visits and contact between” North Korea and Russia, KCNA confirmed on July 29.

North Korea has provided troops and arms for Russia’s war in Ukraine, a move that has been criticised by the US and its allies. They have also accused Moscow of giving technological help to Pyongyang in exchange for its support.

Asked about the North Korean statement, a White House official said Mr Trump was still committed to the goal he had for the three summit meetings he held with Mr Kim in his first term. “The President retains those objectives and remains open to engaging with Leader Kim to achieve a fully denuclearised North Korea,” the White House official told Reuters.

At their first meeting in Singapore in 2018, Mr Trump and Mr Kim signed an agreement in principle to make the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. The subsequent summit in Hanoi in 2019 broke down due to a disagreement over removing international sanctions that had been imposed against Pyongyang.

Mr Trump has said he has a “great relationship” with Mr Kim, and the White House has said the US President is receptive to the idea of communicating with the reclusive North Korean leader to fully end the North’s nuclear programme. REUTERS