President Donald J. Trump said he would reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and the first round of negotiations garnered global attention, but he said he would not reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but he said he would reach out to North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, and the first round of negotiations garnered worldwide attention, but he said he would not reach out to North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, but he said he would reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and the first round of negotiations garnered global attention, but he said he would not be able to reduce Kim's growing nuclear threat. This raises the possibility that bromance diplomacy between the two countries will be reignited after five years of almost no progress. .
After Trump said he would contact Kim again during his second term, he said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, “Mr. Kim likes me and we became good friends.'' “He's not a religious zealot. He just happens to be a smart guy.”
Mr. Trump's comments, aired Thursday night, were the first to signal his intention to resume diplomatic relations with Mr. Kim since taking office on Monday. Trump and Kim made history during their first term by holding the first summit between the two countries, which are technically at war. However, relations between the two men soured after three high-profile talks failed to yield any progress.
It is unclear how Mr. Kim, who has been encouraged by the strengthening of his alliance with Russia and his country's military expansion, will respond to this overture. Analysts say Trump last spoke with Kim five years ago, and North Korea's missile capabilities have expanded and Kim has demanded a higher price for concessions on its nuclear program. It is said that there is a possibility.
Trump expressed interest in the North Korean leader during the campaign, at one point saying, “It's great to get along when someone has a lot of nuclear weapons.” Hours after taking office, he also told reporters that Kim is a “nuclear state,” a shift from Washington's long refusal to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power. be.
Officials in South Korea, a U.S. ally experiencing a domestic political crisis following the impeachment of its leader, fear Trump's return could send the peninsula on another diplomatic roller coaster. There is.
Trump and Kim traded personal insults and threats of nuclear war during their first terms. Afterwards, the two men shook hands and met three times from 2018 to 2019. At one point, Trump declared on social media that “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea” and that he was “fell in love” with Kim.
But those talks ended without an agreement on how to roll back North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs or when to ease sanctions imposed by the United States on the country. Mr. Kim has vowed to keep the United States out of talks again and has focused on building and testing nuclear-capable missiles.
South Korean analysts and officials are now worried that Trump will strike a deal with Kim in which North Korea will give up its long-range missiles but not all nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief. I am doing it.
Mr. Trump's recent statements describing North Korea as a nuclear state clashed with a long-standing agreement between the United States and South Korea that North Korea should never be accepted as such.
In response to Trump's remarks, South Korea's Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying, “North Korea cannot be granted the right to possess nuclear weapons.''
Despite Mr. Trump's flattering comments about Mr. Kim, it is unclear whether the dictator would warm to the idea of a new courtship. After the first round of talks broke down, Kim defended a new “multipolar” world order, signing a mutual defense pact with Russia last year and using weapons and an estimated 12,000 troops to support Russia's war against Ukraine. sent an army of
South Korea's military announced Friday that North Korea is preparing to send additional troops to Russia, despite suffering heavy casualties in the war against Ukraine.
China has long been the only major buffer between North Korea and U.S.-led international efforts to curb the regime's military ambitions. In return for supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine, Mr. Kim welcomed Russia as another key ally to protect it from U.S. pressure.
North Korea had not commented on Trump's election or inauguration until Wednesday, when state media published a two-sentence report.
However, the administration launched missiles from the East Coast days before the inauguration. And the South Korean military says it is preparing to launch more missiles, including long-range ballistic missiles powerful enough to reach the U.S. mainland, which tends to worry U.S. defense officials the most.
North Korea's state media reported on Friday that the country's parliament this week adopted a budget for this year that “ensures the acceleration of significant changes in national defense capabilities.”
Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said Mr. Kim would likely wait until the Labor Party conference in June or another parliamentary session in September to respond to Mr. Trump's overtures. said.
“We will respond after assessing the Trump administration's seriousness, intentions, and calculations behind its approach toward North Korea,'' Hong said.
