North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered his officials to prepare for both dialogue and confrontation with the United States, reported the Associated Press on Saturday, adding that the four-day meeting of the country ruling party, the Worker’s Party of Korea (WPK) finally came to an end with a host of issues on the table. Among the major affairs that were discussed in the plenary meeting are deepening economic hardships, that Kim Jong Un “solemnly swore” to navigate his country out of.
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The United States has been urging North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambition and return to diplomatic talks, which remain stalled amid economic crises made worse by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
Kim Jong Un, for his part, has hinted that North Korea has no plans to abandon its nuclear ambitions unless the US abandons what it calls “hostile” policies. Much of the future of renewed US-North Korea relations will depend on how president Joe Biden decides to walk the path of diplomacy. While several experts have suggested Biden is more likely to take the middle ground between his predecessor’s direct aggression and Barack Obama’s “strategic patience”, others think the United States will not even consider any meaningful relief to sanctions against North Korea unless Kim Jong Un takes concrete denuclearisation steps first.
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Biden’s special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, arrived in South Korea on Saturday to continue talks over the United States’ stalled nuclear diplomacy with the North, reported the Associated Press. During his stay in South Korea, Sung Kim will meet with South Korean senior diplomats and participate in a trilateral meeting that includes Japanese nuclear envoy Takehiro Funakoshi on Monday. His travel emphasises the importance of global three-way cooperation in working toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, the US state department said.
(With inputs from agencies)
