North Korean leader recalls 'good memories' of Trump, urges US to drop denuclearization demands

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says he still has good memories of U.S. President Donald Trump and urged Washington to drop its demand the North surrender its nukes as a precondition for resuming long-stalled diplomacy.

Speaking to Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament on Sunday, Kim stressed that he has no intention of ever resuming dialogue with rival South Korea, a key U.S. ally that helped broker Kim’s previous summits with Trump during the American president’s first term, according to a speech published by state media on Monday.

Kim suspended virtually all cooperation with the South following the collapse of his second summit with Trump in 2019 over disagreements about U.S.-led sanctions against the North. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have worsened in recent years as Kim has accelerated his weapons buildup and aligned with Russia over the war in Ukraine.

Kim’s comments came as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung prepares to depart for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, where he is expected to address nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula and call on North Korea to return to talks.

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 Kim at the inter-Korean border, as they did during their third meeting in 2019, which ultimately failed to salvage their nuclear diplomacy.

During his latest speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim reiterated that he would never give up his nuclear weapons program, which experts say he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival and the extension of his family’s dynastic rule.

“The world already knows well what the United States does after forcing other countries to give up their nuclear weapons and disarm,” Kim said. “We will never lay down our nuclear weapons … There will be no negotiations, now or never, about trading anything with hostile countries in exchange for lifting sanctions.”

He said he still holds “good personal memories” of Trump from their first meetings and that there is “no reason not to” resume talks with the United States if Washington “abandons its delusional obsession with denuclearization.”

Kim has stepped up testing activities in recent years, demonstrating weapons of various ranges designed to strike U.S. allies in Asia and the U.S. mainland. Analysts say Kim’s nuclear push is aimed at eventually pressuring Washington to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and to negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength.

Kim is also trying to bolster his leverage by strengthening cooperation with traditional allies Russia and China, in an emerging partnership aimed at undercutting U.S. influence.

He has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of military equipment to Russia to help support President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. He visited Beijing earlier this month, sharing the spotlight with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin at a massive military parade. Experts say Kim’s rare foreign trip was likely intended to boost his leverage ahead of a potential resumption of talks with the United States.

There’s growing concern in Seoul that it could lose its voice in future efforts to defuse the nuclear standoff on the peninsula, as the North seeks to negotiate directly with the United States. Such fears were amplified last year when Kim declared that he was abandoning North Korea’s long-standing goal of peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of the North’s constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy.