Concessions first, meeting later: N. Korea says will not ‘gift’ another summit to Trump

Pyongyang has made it clear that it will not agree to another high-level meeting between Chairman Kim Jong-un and the US President Donald Trump unless Washington changes its “hostile” policies towards the Asian nation.

Talks between North Korea and the US on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, kicked off by a Trump-Kim summit in Singapore in June 2018, have failed to produce any meaningful results and improve bilateral relations between the two nations, North’s Foreign Ministry adviser Kim Kye Gwan said.

The negotiating process ended up in a deadlock even though two leaders had a meeting in February, exchanged letters and met at the border between two Koreas in June.

“The US only seeks to earn time, pretending it has made progress in settling the issue of the Korean Peninsula,” the official said, according to the state KCNA news agency. He went on to say that Pyongyang gained literally nothing from these talks, and would thus stop doing political favors to Trump until it gets something in exchange.

Pyongyang indeed made some steps towards scrapping the nuclear program as it halted nuclear tests, demolished its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in May 2018 and dismantled a rocket test site two months later. The US still refused to make any concessions to Pyongyang, arguing that it would consider lifting sanctions only after North Korea fully denuclearizes.

We are no longer interested in such talks that bring nothing to us. As we have got nothing in return, we will no longer gift the U.S. president with something he can boast of, but get compensation for the successes that President Trump is proud of as his administrative achievements.

The statement comes a day after Trump indicated he was willing to hold another meeting with Kim by addressing him in a tweet that read: “You should act quickly, get the deal done. See you soon!”

Earlier, the US Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced that another joint military exercise between the US and South Korea – a constant source of irritation for the North – has been cancelled in what he called a “goodwill” gesture. Nevertheless, the move apparently failed to impress Pyogyang, which demanded Washington stop its “hostile” policy towards the nation.

The first Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was hailed as an immense success as it was the first-ever such meeting between the US and North Korean leaders. Yet, the talks eventually faltered, since the second such summit in February 2019 in Vietnam collapsed when the US rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief.

Thing soured even further in October when the working-level talks between the two nations failed as well. Pyongyang then lambasted the US for “abusing the DPRK-US dialogue for its domestic political events” and calling the negotiations process itself futile.

Now, the two nations are approaching an end-of-year deadline set by Kim for the Trump administration to offer an acceptable deal to salvage talks. Pyongyang said last week that Washington had offered to resume talks in December. Whether the North would agree to the supposed offer is still unclear.

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