US President Donald Trump has said he wants to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un later this year. Pyongyang, however, has reacted coolly to his proposals, suggesting that North Korea will set tough conditions for such a meeting, even if the two leaders have "excellent" relations, Reuters reports.
Earlier this week, Trump abruptly scaled back the scale of joint US-South Korean military exercises, saying they were "hostile" to North Korea. On Wednesday, he expressed his expectation of meeting Kim later this year.
Trump is keen to renew talks with North Korea and achieve success on the international stage, a person familiar with the talks between US and South Korean officials said.
The nearly six-month-old war with Iran is in no immediate sight, and Trump's attempt to reach out to North Korea comes despite Pyongyang sending troops and military equipment, including missiles, to support Russia in its war in Ukraine.
South Korea has welcomed Trump's strategy on an unofficial level, although officials in Seoul still have doubts about scaling back joint military exercises with the US, the source said.
Trump could attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APC) summit in Shenzhen later this year, which would open the door to a regional meeting if North Korea shows willingness to resumption of dialogue, the source added.
"The United States remains open to dialogue with North Korea without preconditions", a US State Department spokesman said. "The president and Kim Jong-un will meet again at the right time".
However, North Korea's reaction so far, while describing the personal relationship between Kim and Trump as "excellent", makes it clear that Pyongyang views their personal relationship as separate from any possible dialogue with the United States, said Lim Il-chul, a professor at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University.
"Personal relationships will never be allowed to jeopardize national security interests or efforts to strengthen military capabilities," Lim stressed.
"In other words, Pyongyang is sending a signal that personal diplomacy has its limits and will not override strategic priorities.".
Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's influential sister, rejected the scaling down of the "Freedom Shield" exercises Ulchi, saying that their continuation remains an aggressive act and that US policy towards North Korea remains hostile. She also denied that Trump and Kim had had any contact, although she described the personal relationship between the two leaders as "excellent".
Yesterday, North Korea fired about 10 ballistic missiles off its east coast, the South Korean military said. Analysts say this could be a protest against ongoing military exercises between the US and South Korea.
"If the US side tries to present the measures taken this time as some kind of "goodwill gesture", it will not get the response it wants," Kim Yo-jong said.
North Korea has clearly shown what conditions would make a meeting attractive to it, and these conditions represent a very high bar for the US, said Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Washington-based "Stimson Center".
Among these conditions would be significant changes in US policy towards North Korea, which would eliminate elements defined by Pyongyang as hostile, as well as recognition of the country's nuclear status or at least a declaration that nuclear disarmament is no longer Washington's goal, she specified.
"The extent to which Trump is willing to accept these conditions to ensure the meeting within the deadline he has set himself remains to be seen. "question," Town said.
A State Department spokesman assured that the United States "remains committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea."
In 2018 and 2019, Trump held an unprecedented series of summits with Kim, but diplomatic efforts failed due to American demands that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly called North Korea a "nuclear power," although his administration continues to push for the country's denuclearization and does not officially recognize it as a nuclear-weapon state.
Kim has less incentive to agree to a meeting than during Trump's first term, when he sought sanctions relief. Since then, North Korea has grown closer to China and Russia, and growing trade with the two countries has helped boost its economy.
"North Korea has the capacity and is developing relationships with countries that do not demand sacrifices from it, but only offer mutually beneficial relationships," Town said.
"There is little incentive for it to quickly return to negotiations where it is expected to make concessions, especially on an issue it sees as vital to its defense."
But North Korea's reaction appears carefully measured to leave the option of diplomacy open, said Hong Min, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, citing Kim Yo-jong's statement.
"The main goal seems to be to encourage a more favorable stance from the United States," Hong said, noting that Pyongyang probably deliberately not mentioning Iran so as not to irritate Trump.
"Kim Yo-jong's statement seems less like a refusal to engage in dialogue and more like an attempt to manage Trump's perceptions, shape his understanding of North Korea and lay the groundwork for possible future U.S.-North Korea talks," he said.
The statement also came with particularly sharp criticism of Japan, whose military buildup and deepening security ties with the U.S. and South Korea are increasingly a source of Pyongyang's displeasure.
Pyongyang is proposing a framework for U.S.-North Korea relations that marginalizes South Korea and views Japan primarily as a military adversary, Hong added.
"U.S.-North Korea relations may be entering a phase of mutual exploration and signaling," he suggested.