Kim Jong Un signals openness to Trump talks if US drops denuclearization demand

In a speech to North Korea’s parliament, Kim reaffirmed his country’s nuclear status as “irreversible,” snubbed South Korea as a dialogue partner, and hinted that sanctions relief in exchange for a weapons freeze could be back on the table.

Seoul: North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, said he had “good memories” of President Donald Trump and ​saw no reason not to meet him again — as long as the United States stops insisting on dismantling his country’s nuclear arsenal.

Kim’s remarks — contained in his speech ​before the North Korean parliament Sunday and reported by state media Monday — came days after Trump said he would travel to South Korea in late October for a regional summit.

Trump, who met Kim three times in 2018 and 2019, has repeatedly since his return to the White House expressed a willingness to meet Kim again, boasting of his “good relationship” with the North Korean dictator. North Korea, too, has reported that Kim’s relations with Trump ​were “not bad.” But the speech Sunday marked the first time since Trump began his second term that Kim personally commented on their relationship.

“Personally, I still have good memories of U.S. President Trump,” Kim said during his speech Sunday. “If the U.S. drops its hollow obsession with denuclearization and wants to pursue peaceful coexistence with North Korea based on the recognition of reality, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the U.S.”

Kim saved some of his harshest words for South Korea, snubbing ​calls from the South’s leader, Lee Jae Myung​, for inter-Korean dialogue. He said the North would never sit down with the South for talks or discuss the reunification of the​ divided Korean Peninsula.

“We will never unify with a country that entrusts its politics and defense to a foreign power,” ​he said, referring to South Korea’s military alliance with the United States.

South Korea helped mediate the three meetings during Trump’s first term. But ​they ended without an agreement on how to ​dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program or when to lift international sanctions imposed on the country.​

In his negotiations with Trump, Kim had proposed to dismantle part of his country’s nuclear facilities if Washington lifted the most devastating sanctions, like the ban on North Korea’s ​key exports, such as coal, iron ore, textiles and fishery products. Trump wanted a broader rollback in the North’s nuclear program.

Since the collapse of the negotiations, Kim has doubled down on producing fuel for nuclear weapons and developing more nuclear-capable missiles. He has dismissed South Korea as a dialogue partner. He has vowed never to put his country’s nuclear arsenal on the negotiating table — a stance he reiterated more emphatically Sunday than before.

“I affirm that there will never, never be denuclearization for us,” he said, calling his country’s status as a nuclear weapons power “irreversible” and not tradable for sanctions relief.

Some analysts in South Korea noted the timing of Kim’s comments. Trump ​said on social media Friday that he would travel to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and meet with President Xi Jinping of China there.​

South Korean officials said Kim was not expected to join the APEC meeting in the city of Gyeongju​. But Kim and Trump met on short notice in 2019 in Panmunjom, a village straddling the border between North and South Korea.

It would be difficult for the two leaders to pull off such a meeting this time, given the tense relationship between the two Koreas, said Lee Byong-chul, an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

​But the friendly exchange between Trump and Kim increased the chances of resuming diplomacy. If the two were to meet again, Kim would likely insist that Washington ease sanctions on North Korea in return for a freeze on its nuclear weapons program, analysts said. Such a deal would ​essentially recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons power.

“​It would be a huge trophy for Kim,” Lee said.

Kim has more leverage than he had during his first round of negotiations. Washington’s growing tensions with Beijing and Moscow have helped ​him, as both China and Russia have vetoed U.S.-led attempts to place new sanctions on the North. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kim has strengthened ties with President Vladimir Putin by supplying North Korean troops and weapons to aid Putin’s war efforts.

Last year, Russia and North Korea signed an alliance treaty.​ Earlier this month, ​Kim stood side by side with Xi and Putin watching a military parade in Beijing.

​On Sunday, Kim said that in his country’s confrontation with the United States, “time is on our side.”