N. Korea says ties between NK-US leaders 'not bad' but rejects denuclearization talks
Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the ruling party's Central Committee, made the remarks as US President Donald Trump has expressed his intent to reengage with the North's leader.
"I do not want to deny the fact that the personal relationship between the head of our state and the present US president is not bad," Kim said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
"However, if the personal relations between the top leaders of the DPRK and the US are to serve the purpose of denuclearization, it can be interpreted as nothing but a mockery of the other party," she said.
DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Her remarks came days after a White House official told Yonhap News Agency that Trump remains open to engagement with the North Korean leader to achieve a "fully denuclearized" North Korea.
Expectations have persisted that Trump might seek to resume his personal diplomacy with Kim, which led to three in-person meetings between them, including the first summit in Singapore in 2018. But the Hanoi summit in 2019 ended without a deal due to differences over the North's denuclearization steps in return for sanctions relief.
While mentioning the official's remarks that she called the US side's "unilateral assessment," Kim Yo-jong stressed, "The year 2025 is neither 2018 nor 2019," and called for recognizing her country as a nuclear state.
"Any attempt to deny the position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state ... will be thoroughly rejected," she said. "There should be a minimum judgment to admit that it is by no means beneficial to each other for the two countries possessed of nuclear weapons to go in a confrontational direction."
Experts said North Korea reaffirmed its stance that it will not sit down for Pyongyang's denuclearization but appears to have left open room for talks with the US for other topics.
Kim's remarks came just a day after she issued another statement via the KCNA claiming Pyongyang will not sit down with Seoul for dialogue and condemning it for "blindly adhering" to the South Korea-US alliance. (Yonhap)
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