Confrontation or dialogue? You choose, North Korea’s Kim tells US

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has warned that Pyongyang is ready for confrontation with the US but has also left the door open for dialogue, depending on Washington’s stance. The prospects for North Korea-US relations hinge “entirely on the attitude of the United States”, he said on Wednesday. Pyongyang was prepared for both “peaceful coexistence or eternal confrontation”, but the choice lay with Washington. So long as the US respected North Korea’s nuclear-armed state status, which is enshrined in its constitution, there was “no reason not to get along”, Kim said late on Wednesday at the close of the ninth Workers’ Party congress. If Washington continued its confrontational approach, however, he said Pyongyang would respond “proportionally”. It had “more than sufficient means and methods” to do so, Kim added, vowing to develop more powerful weapons including submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). “Further expanding and strengthening the national nuclear force and fully exercising our status as a nuclear weapons state is the unwavering will of our party,” he said. Kim’s remarks showed that Pyongyang was keeping the door open to dialogue with Washington while having no intention of picking up from where the two countries left off, said Oh Gyeong-seob, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in reviving talks with Kim. But the North Korean leader has avoided any form of engagement with the US or South Korea since the collapse of talks at the 2019 Hanoi summit, pivoting instead towards Russia amid the ongoing Ukraine war. No disarmament talks “For the North, nuclear disarmament is off the table for good. It now says it could accept nuclear arms reduction talks with Washington on its own terms”, Oh said. Kim used his speech to make clear that North Korea will align more firmly with Russia and China to counter America’s global hegemony, according to Oh. For a Trump-Kim dialogue to happen, there should be no mention of denuclearisation, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies. “Given [Pyongyang’s] continued criticism of US imperialism and hegemonism, its commitment to strengthening nuclear forces, and repeated assertions of its irreversible status as a nuclear-armed state, it is expected to reject any US–North Korea negotiations premised on denuclearisation,” Yang said. “Kim makes it clear that there would be no dialogue unless Washington abandons its ‘hostile policy’. By presenting such preconditions, however, North Korea leaves the door open, at least formally, to talks with Washington.” That door is firmly closed against the South. In Wednesday’s speech, Kim said there was “absolutely nothing to discuss” with Seoul and vowed to “forever exclude the Republic of Korea from the category of compatriots”. Kim has previously redefined inter-Korean relations as those between “two hostile states”, breaking from the long-standing formulation of a divided nation moving towards reunification, and has accused successive South Korean administrations of seeking to undermine the North’s system. He specifically dismissed “pragmatist” President Lee Jae Myung’s conciliatory posture as a “clumsy and deceitful farce”. The calls for reconciliation and peace under the banner of the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” were a ruse to achieve North Korean disarmament, Kim added. As South Korea cannot escape its geopolitical reality of sharing a border with the North, “the only way to live safely is to give up everything related to us and refrain from provoking us”, he said. He also warned Seoul to halt what he called “unnecessary actions that could disrupt the existing stability”. Should the South undermine the North’s security interests, Pyongyang would deploy “all forms of physical force against hostile states, including pre-emptive strike missions”, he warned. “The possibility of South Korea’s complete collapse cannot be ruled out.” Kim suggested that this strategic ambiguity was deliberate, saying adversaries “do not know what we are planning or calculating – and they must not know”. Such uncertainty would be a source of “inescapable anxiety and fear” for the country’s enemies, he said. ‘Two hostile states’ “The North is effectively closing the door on any contacts with the South”, Oh said. “Kim had earlier promised that he would not use ICBMs against the same nation. By redefining ties with the South as those of two hostile states, he has freed himself from this promise.” Inter-Korean dialogue is unlikely to resume “as the North perceives the existence of the South as threats to its own survival”, according to Oh. “Kim suspects that the South is pursuing the North’s collapse through cultural infiltrations under the guise of reconciliation and exchanges as military conquest has now become impossible because of the North’s nuclear deterrence,” he said. “The spread of Korean capitalist culture is feeding into North Koreans’ mythic narratives for abundance in the South, posing threats to the North’s one-man rule.” Kim also said the North-South border would be fortified, raising concerns over heightened cross-border tensions. “By characterising this line as a conclusive guiding principle, the North makes clear that it has no intention of reversing course,” Yang said. “This approach reflects a vision of a stable, independent state, likely with succession considerations in mind.” Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, attended a military parade capping off the congress in Pyongyang on Wednesday night, state media footage showed on Thursday, amid speculation that she is being groomed as a potential successor. “The intended message from the military parade was that Pyongyang’s weapons, and willingness to use them, mean what has been done to Venezuela and Iran can’t be done to North Korea,” said Leif-Eric Easley, an international studies professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. South Korea’s president said last month that Korean unification was not an immediate priority. “Unification feels like a distant prospect at the moment. We would be fortunate simply to avoid a war,” Lee said at a press conference. “We must do everything possible to move towards a situation in which peaceful coexistence is achievable.” His remarks reflect a pragmatic assessment of inter-Korean relations, with Pyongyang having remained unresponsive to the Lee administration’s repeated overtures. North Korea’s response to Lee’s conciliatory gestures was “regrettable and disappointing”, Yang said. “Even while pursuing a path of full state independence, maintaining inter-Korean relations would be beneficial for economic development and regional stability”, he said. “For the sake of consolidating internal unity and preparing a future succession structure, the regime appears to have chosen a permanent break with South Korea.” Still, inter-Korean relations are currently less pressing than US-North Korea ties, given Kim’s apparent willingness to hold talks with Trump, according to Yang. “In the meantime, efforts should also focus on reducing tensions and preventing accidental military clashes.”

Confrontation or dialogue? You choose, North Korea’s Kim tells US

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As long as Washington acknowledges Pyongyang as a nuclear power, there is ‘no reason not to get along’, the North Korean leader says

As long as Washington acknowledges Pyongyang as a nuclear power, there is ‘no reason not to get along’, the North Korean leader says