Kim Jong-Un’s foreign policy priority is now focussed Russia, which he has supplied with weapons and troops to help prolong its warfighting in Ukraine. It is even feared Kim may receive economic assistance and advanced technology to develop his arsenal in exchange for its military supporting Russia.
He has aligned with Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. And he has ignored recent calls by Seoul and Washington to resume denuclearisation talks. US President Donald Trump has said he would reach out to Kim again to revive diplomacy, but the North has not responded. Trump and Kim met three times during Trump’s first term, but their diplomacy quickly collapsed over disagreements about ending US-led sanctions in return for North Korea winding down its weapons programs.
Meanwhile, Jim’s powerful sister has slammed western attempts to ‘de-nuclearise’ North Korea, mocking it as a “daydream”. Kim Yo Jong, one of the Pyongyang’ regime’s most influential foreign policy officials, claimed nuclear proliferation was in North Korea’s constitution. And she vowed the rogue and secretive state will never give up its dream of one day having a nuclear weapons arsenal available.
Her outburst came in response to last week’s meeting between the top US, South Korean and Japanese diplomats where they reaffirmed their de-nuclearisation determination. She insisted any further external discussions of denuclearisation constitutes “the most hostile act” and amount to a denial of her country’s sovereignty.
She added: “If the US and its vassal forces continue to insist on anachronistic ‘denuclearisation’ – it will only give unlimited justness and justification to the advance of the DPRK aspiring after the building of the strongest nuclear force for self-defense.”
She said North Korea’s nuclear weapons status can “never be reversed by any physical strength or sly artifice”. Tensions in the regions have soared as Kim Jong Un continues to flaunt his military nuclear capabilities.
Kim Yo Jong’s statement came a day after South Korea fired warning shots to repel a group of North Korean soldiers who had crossed the border. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said ten North Korean soldiers, some carrying weapons, violated the military demarcation line in the eastern section of the border.
When South Korea issued warnings and fired warning shots, they did not return fire and returned to North Korea. It wasn’t immediately clear whether acting South Korea’s president Han Duck-soo discussed the North Korean nuclear threat with U.S. President Donald Trump during a telephone conversation on Tuesday.
Trump said in a social media post that the two leaders discussed tariffs, trade and Seoul’s payment for what he called the “big time” military protection the United States provides to South Korea.
There are concerns in Seoul that Trump might push South Korea to pay significantly more of the costs for the some 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country. North and South Korea ended their three year war, which had been supported by China and Russia to the north and America and the UK in the south, in 1953. But they are still technically at war as no lasting peace agreement was ever settled upon.
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