North Korean leader Kim Jong-un slams door on new US nuclear talks

North Korea has reiterated it has no immediate plans to resume nuclear negotiations with the US.

Kim Jong-un addresses the politburo of the ruling Workers’ Party late last week. Picture: AFP

North Korea has reiterated it has no immediate plans to resume ­nuclear negotiations with the US unless Washington discards what it describes as “hostile” polices towards Pyongyang.

The statement by North Kor­ean First Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui on Saturday came after President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, said in New York on Thursday that Mr Trump might seek another summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as an “October surprise” ahead of the US presidential election.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had lobbied hard to help set up the now-stalled negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, also expressed hope that Mr Trump and Kim would meet again before the election in a video conference with European leaders on Tuesday.

Kim and Mr Trump have met three times since embarking on their high-stakes nuclear diplomacy in 2018, but negotiations have faltered since their second summit in February last year in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability. Kim entered 2020 vowing to bolster his nuclear deterrent in face of “gangster-like” US sanctions and pressure.

Ms Choe’s statement followed a series of similar declarations by the North that it would no longer gift Mr Trump with meetings he could boast of as his foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return.

“Is it possible to hold dialogue or have any dealings with the US which persists in the hostile policy toward the DPRK in disregard of the agreements already made at the past summit?” Ms Choe said, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“We do not feel any need to sit face-to-face with the US, as it does not consider the DPRK-US dialogue as nothing more than a tool for grappling its political crisis.”

Some analysts believe North Korea would avoid serious negotiations with the US at least until the November presidential election as there’s a chance US leadership could change.

Ms Choe said the North has already established a “detailed strategic timetable” for managing what she described as US threats.

“The US is mistaken if it thinks things like negotiations would still work on us,” she said.

The North has also been ramping up pressure against South Korea, blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office in its territory and threatening to abandon a military agreement aimed at reducing tensions. It follows months of frustration over Seoul’s unwillingness to defy US-led sanctions and restart joint economic projects that would breathe life into the North’s broken economy.

The North’s state media on Friday said that Kim, while supervising a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party on Thursday, discussed “important issues related to the external affairs” but didn’t specify what they were.

He also urged officials to maintain alertness against the coronavirus, warning that complacency risked “unimaginable and irretrievable crisis”. Despite the warning, Kim reaffirmed the North’s claim to not have had a single case of COVID-19.

Outsiders widely doubt North Korea escaped the pandemic entirely, given its poor health infrastructure and close trade and travel ties to China, where the coronavirus emerged late last year.

The North earlier this year shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned tourists and mobilised health workers to quarantine anyone with symptoms. Experts say the country’s self-imposed lockdown is hurting an economy already battered by sanctions.

AP