North Korea’s Kim seeks better ties with South, but slams US
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA » North Korea leader Kim Jong Un expressed willingness to restore stalled communication lines with South Korea in coming days while shrugging off U.S. offers for dialogue as “cunning ways” to conceal its hostility against the North, state media reported Thursday.
Kim’s statement is an apparent effort to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington as he wants South Korea to help him win relief from crippling U.S.-led economic sanctions and other concessions. Pyongyang this month has offered conditional talks with Seoul alongside its first missile firings in six months and stepped-up criticism of the United States.
The U.N. Security Council delayed an emergency closed meeting to discuss North Korea’s recent tests from Thursday morning until Friday at the request of Russia, China and other council members who said they needed more time to prepare, diplomats said. The meeting was requested by the United States, the U.K. and France.
During a speech at his country’s rubber-stamp parliament on Wednesday, Kim said the restoration in early October of cross-border hotlines — which have been largely dormant for more than a year — would realize the Korean people’s wishes for a peace between the two Koreas, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Kim still accused South Korea of being “bent on begging external support and cooperation while clamoring for international cooperation in servitude to the U.S.,” rather than committing to resolving the matters independently between the Koreas.
Kim echoed his powerful sister Kim Yo Jong’s calls for Seoul to abandon “doubledealing attitude” and “hostile viewpoint” over the North’s missile tests and other developments. Some experts say North Korea is pressuring South Korea to tone down its criticism of its ballistic missile tests, which are banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions, as part of its quest to receive an international recognition as a nuclear power.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry responded that it’ll prepare for the restoration of the hotlines that it said is needed to discuss and resolve many pending issues. It said it expects them to operate smoothly because their restoration was directly instructed by Kim Jong Un.
On the United States, Kim Jong Un dismissed repeated U.S. offers to resume talks without preconditions, calling them an attempt to hide America’s “hostile policy” and “military threats” that he said remain unchanged.
The Biden administration “is touting ‘diplomatic engagement’ and ‘dialogue without preconditions’ but it is no more than a petty trick for deceiving the international community and hiding its hostile acts,” Kim said.
He has warned he would bolster his nuclear arsenal and stay away from negotiations with Washington unless it drops its “hostile policy,” a term used to describe the U.S.-led sanctions and regular military drills between Washington and Seoul.
U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed hope to sit down for talks with North Korea “anywhere and at any time,” but have maintained they will continue sanctions until the North takes concrete steps toward denuclearization. The diplomacy has been stalled for 2 ½ years due to disagreements over easing of sanctions in return for limited denuclearization steps.