Seoul, 29 July

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dismissed the US's intent to resume diplomacy on North Korea's denuclearisation, as she urged Washington to accept her country as a nuclear weapons state and find a new approach to restart talks.

Kim Yo Jong's statement suggested North Korea would only return to talks if the US rewards it for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability. Some experts say US President Donald Trump could still pursue talks with North Korea to make a diplomatic achievement.

Trump has recently bragged of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed hopes of restarting nuclear diplomacy between them. Their high-stakes diplomacy in 2018-19 that occurred during Trump's first term unraveled after Trump rejected Kim's calls for extensive sanctions relief in return for dismantling his main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearisation step. Kim has since executed weapons tests to modernise and expand his nuclear arsenal.

Kim's sister calls relations between her brother, Trump “not bad”

In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo Jong said she doesn't deny the personal relationship between her brother and Trump “is not bad.” But she said if their personal relations are to serve the purpose of North Korea's denuclearisation, North Korea would view it as “nothing but a mockery.”

She said North Korea's nuclear capability has sharply increased since the first round of the Kim-Trump diplomacy and that any attempt to deny North Korea as a nuclear weapons state would be rejected.

“If the US fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK-US meeting will remain as a hope' of the US side,” Kim Yo Jong said, referring to her country by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

She said it would be “advisable to seek another way of contact."

Kim Yo Jong is a key official on the Central Committee of the North's ruling Workers' Party. She handles the country's relations with South Korea and the United States, and South Korean officials and experts believe she is the North's second-most powerful person after her brother.

North Korea likely wants talks on partial denuclearisation

Kim Yo Jong said she was responding to reported comments by a US official that Trump is open to talks on denuclearisation. She likely was referring to a Saturday article by Yonhap news agency that cited an unidentified White House official as saying Trump “remains open to engaging with Leader Kim to achieve a fully denuclearised North Korea.”

“North Korea wants to say it's not interested in talks on denuclearisation and the US must determine what benefits it can give to the North first,” said Nam Sung-wook, a former head of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea's spy agency.

Nam said Trump's likely desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize would prompt him to seek talks with Kim Jong Un and give him corresponding benefits for taking phased denuclearisation steps. Nam said North Korea would want broad sanctions relief, a suspension of US-South Korea military drills that it regards as invasion rehearsals and other economic incentives.

Kim Yeol Soo, an analyst at South Korea's Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said US and North Korean officials could meet if they narrow some differences on terms for restoring talks. But he said Trump's unpredictability would make it extremely difficult to predict what concessions the Americans would offer.

Prospects for early US-North Korea talks likely depend on the Russia-Ukraine war

Other experts have earlier said that North Korea — now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia — sees no urgent need to resume diplomacy with the US and South Korea.

On Monday, Kim Yo Jong rebuffed overtures by South Korea's new liberal government, saying its “blind trust” in the country's alliance with the US and hostility toward North Korea make it no different from its conservative predecessor.