Seoul, September 23: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is willing to hold talks with the United States if Washington abandons its insistence on denuclearisation, state media reported on Sunday, in his most explicit signal in years of openness to engagement with Washington.
“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearising us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” Kim said in a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
Kim, who met U.S. President Donald Trump three times during Trump’s first presidency, also struck a personal note. “Personally, I still have fond memories of U.S. President Trump,” he said.
Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said at a White House meeting last month that they were open to engaging Kim, with Trump adding: “Someday, I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me.”
Lee, who took office in June, has advocated a softer line toward Pyongyang, suggesting a more “realistic” approach focused on halting further expansion of North Korea’s arsenal rather than immediate denuclearisation. In recent interviews with the BBC and Reuters, he said sanctions had failed to deter Pyongyang, which he estimated is adding 15 to 20 nuclear weapons annually.
Kim, however, dismissed the idea of trading sanctions relief for concessions. “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,” he said, adding that sanctions had only made the country stronger.
North Korea has repeatedly denounced joint military drills between the United States and South Korea, with Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, calling them “reckless” rehearsals for invasion.
Kim’s remarks came weeks after he attended a military parade in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, underscoring closer ties with Beijing and Moscow. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has warned that the nine nuclear-armed states, including North Korea, risk fueling a new global arms race.
