North Korea Dismisses Trump’s Recent Overtures to Kim Jong Un

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said there was no communication between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, according to a statement published by the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 19. “As for the news from Washington that shortly ago, there was a communication between the leaders of the DPRK and the U.S., I am not aware of it at all, and perhaps it may be the only thing I do not know as regards the foreign policy of our supreme leadership,” Kim said. (DPRK is an acronym of North Korea’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.) It was the first response of Pyongyang to U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un responded to his overtures. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump has discussed setting up a meeting with Kim Jong Un on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which will be held in November in Shenzhen, China. In the past few days, Trump has made friendly gestures to Kim Jong Un. He posted a photo of him and Kim taking a stroll during the Hanoi Summit in 2019 and a meme of Kim making a phone call, with text suggesting he was calling Trump. On August 17, Trump said on his Truth Social account that he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the joint military exercises with South Korea, which began on the same day. The Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises were supposed to last until August 27 but, according to local media reports, they will end on August 21. South Korea’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries said on August 19 that Washington had not explained or given advance notice regarding Trump’s decision to scale down the joint military exercises. However, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung showed a positive attitude, saying that he will remain fully dedicated to serving as “a peacemaker” to facilitate and contribute to Trump’s peacemaking endeavors. As North Korea has long deemed the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises as an invasion rehearsal, some expected that Pyongyang would at least make a reciprocal gesture. However, Kim Yo Jong clearly downplayed Trump’s decision to scale back the ongoing joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea. “As for the reduction of the U.S.-ROK joint military drill abruptly announced by the U.S. president a few days ago, we regard it as the one unworthy of comment and have no interest in it at all,” Kim said. (ROK is an acronym of South Korea’s official name, Republic of Korea.) “The reduction of the scale and duration of the drill does not mean the change of the nature of the military drill with a provocative and offensive feature.” In a separate statement published by KCNA a day later, also attributed to Kim Yo Jong, she mocked South Korea’s “poor plight” over the cancellation. “The ROK cannot let out a single word of protest at the GIs leaving without any mutual coordination at the U.S. chief executive’s unilateral order,” Kim said. “This is the inevitable fate of the puppet army.” She also compared the South Korea-U.S. alliance to “the relation between master and servant.” However, Kim still refrained from indicating any positive response on Pyongyang’s part to the reduction of the exercises. Also on August 20, North Korea fired around 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the ocean off its east coast, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The missiles, which flew around 300 km, were launched from the Pyongyang area around 5 p.m. KST. The South Korean National Security Council convened an emergency meeting and condemned the North’s missile launches. Despite her explicit accusation that the United States was maintaining its hostile policy against North Korea, Kim Yo Jong confirmed again that the relationship between Trump and Kim Jong Un is “still excellent,” which is the only confirmation of Pyongyang that matches what Trump has said in the past days. Following Kim Yo Jong’s statement, Trump said North Korea possesses “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” and emphasized that he gets along with Kim Jong Un well. With that, Trump also said that he expects to meet with the North Korean leader later this year. However, Ahn Gyu-back, the defense minister of South Korea, told lawmakers at the South’s National Assembly on August 21 that North Korea may have around 80 to 120 nuclear weapons. Ahn said that he could not share Seoul’s estimate of the exact number of the North’s nuclear weapons. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi happened to be visiting Seoul amid the furor over a potential Trump-Kim summit. In the meeting with his counterpart, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, on August 19, Wang said China will play a constructive role for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Regarding China’s role in a potential summit between Trump and Kim, Wang declined to comment, saying it is a matter for the U.S. and North Korea.