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North Korea said on Tuesday that the United States would face great “disappointment” if it expected a speedy resumption of talks over its nuclear weapons program, dealing a blow to the Biden administration’s envoy who has proposed a new round of negotiations.
The US special envoy to North Korea, Sung Kim, called this week for a meeting “anywhere, anytime without preconditions” during his first visit to the Korean peninsula since his appointment by President Biden.
Mr. Kim, who is visiting Seoul, is a familiar face to many North Korean officials as he previously served as a special envoy from 2014 to 2016. The veteran diplomat is also a former US ambassador to South Korea. By appointing him a special envoy, Biden demonstrated his seriousness in bargaining with the North. But it also allowed Mr. Kim to keep his current position as ambassador to Indonesia, essentially making the special envoy role a part-time job.
On Tuesday, North Korea warned the United States not to move forward on the issue of dialogue. In the statement, published by the official North Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, the only sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, mocked Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, for calling for a clearer signal that isolation. The country was ready to talk.
“It appears that the United States may interpret the situation in a way that seeks comfort for itself,” said Ms. Kim, her brother’s spokeswoman. “Expectations, which they have chosen to harbor in the wrong way, will plunge them into even greater disappointment.”
During a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party in Pyongyang last Thursday, Kim Jong Un ordered his government to be “ready for dialogue and confrontation” with the United States. Mr. Sullivan called the remarks an “interesting signal,” but said North Korea needed to provide a more direct response to Washington’s earlier pleas.
The obvious signal they could send is to say, ‘Yes, let’s do that. “Let’s sit down and start the negotiations,” Mr. Sullivan said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday.
On a trip to Seoul to discuss North Korea with South Korean and Japanese officials, Sung Kim reiterated that message. He called on North Korea to “respond positively to our communication and offer to meet.” He also affirmed Washington’s commitment to United Nations sanctions aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
Leif Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, said Kim Yo Jong’s statement on Tuesday indicated that “North Korea is not ready to resume negotiations.”
North Korea has a history of looking for incentives before returning to the negotiating table. Analysts in Seoul have indicated that the country may use the upcoming joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington, scheduled for August, as an excuse to postpone the dialogue. North Korea has long described the exercises as a “hostile” act.
“The Biden administration is offering dialogue without preconditions, but Kim Yo Jong intends to place the burden of resuming talks on Washington,” Mr. Easley said.
For now, North Korea is expected to focus on reopening the border with China, which has been closed due to the pandemic, in order to receive more trade and cooperation from its most important political and economic ally, said Chung Seong-chang, director of the Center for North Korea Studies at the Sejong Institute. in South Korea.
“North Korea will take time to prepare for dialogue with the United States,” he said.
Kim Jong Un met former President Donald J. Trump three times between 2018 and 2019 in the hope of lifting crippling economic sanctions. His diplomacy collapsed without agreement on how to dismantle North Korea’s arsenal or when to ease sanctions.
North Korea has since insisted that it is willing to establish a “new relationship” with the United States, but only if Washington ends its “hostile policy,” a general phrase the North uses to refer to sanctions and threats to the US military presence in the region.
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