Kim Jong Un has revealed he still has good memories of Donald Trump as he urged Washington to drop its demand on his nation to surrender its nuclear weapons as a precondition for resuming long-stalled diplomacy.
Speaking to Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament on Sunday, he stressed he has no intention of ever resuming dialogue with rival South Korea, a key US ally that helped broker his previous summits with Mr Trump during the American president’s first term.
The North Korean leader suspended virtually all cooperation with the South following the collapse of his second summit with Mr Trump in February 2019 over disagreements about US-led sanctions against the North.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have worsened in recent years as Mr Kim has accelerated his weapons build-up and aligned with Russia over the war in Ukraine.
His comments came as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung departed for New York to attend the UN General Assembly, where he is expected to address the nuclear tensions and call on North Korea to return to talks.
Mr Trump is also expected to visit South Korea next month to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, prompting media speculation that he may try to meet Mr Kim at the inter-Korean border, as they did during their third meeting in June 2019, which ultimately failed to salvage their nuclear diplomacy.
During his speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Mr Kim reiterated that he would never give up his nuclear weapons programme, which experts say he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival and the extension of his family’s dynastic rule.
