Kim Yo-jong: "Relationship with Trump is not bad"... No denuclearization talks between North Korea and the US

[Financial News] Kim Yo-jong, the Deputy Director of the Workers' Party of Korea, officially admitted that the relationship between her brother, Kim Jong-un, the Chairman of North Korea, and President Donald Trump is not bad. However, she emphasized that there will be no denuclearization talks between North Korea and the US.
According to the Korean Central News Agency on the 29th, Deputy Director Kim stated this in a statement titled 'Contact between the US and North Korea is only the hope of the United States'. It is a message from North Korea to the United States just a day after declaring a complete severance of dialogue with South Korea.
Deputy Director Kim stated, "If the United States cannot accept the changed reality and remains obsessed with the past, the meeting between the US and North Korea will remain only as the hope of the United States."
 She also said, "I do not want to deny the fact that the personal relationship between our head of state and the current US president is not bad," but emphasized, "If the personal relationship between the US and North Korean leaders is placed on the same line as the goal of realizing denuclearization, it can only be interpreted as a mockery of the other party."
In the statement, Deputy Director Kim referred to the remarks of a White House official about an open stance on dialogue with North Korea for denuclearization, saying, "It is necessary to recall that 2025 is not 2018 or 2019."
The US and North Korea held summits in Singapore in June 2018 and in Hanoi in February 2019, and met in Panmunjom in June 2019.
She emphasized, "The recognition of the undeniable fact that our country's irreversible nuclear-armed status and its capabilities, as well as the fundamentally changed geopolitical environment, should be the premise for predicting and considering everything in the future."
She continued, "Any attempt to deny our country's status as a nuclear-armed state, which is established with the existence of strong nuclear deterrence and fixed as the supreme law by the consensus of the entire Korean people, will be thoroughly rejected."
Deputy Director Kim argued, "There should be at least the judgment to recognize the fact that it is not beneficial for the two nuclear-armed states to go in a confrontational direction, and if so, it would be better to seek other contact routes based on such new thinking."
Deputy Director Kim's remarks are interpreted as reaffirming the stance that there will be no denuclearization talks between North Korea and the US, while suggesting that dialogue for other purposes is possible.




rainman@fnnews.com Kim Kyung-soo Reporter