North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he will impose the “strictest” anti-US policy, less than a month before Donald Trump takes over as US president, the country’s state media reported on Sunday.
Trump’s return to the White House raises the prospect of high-profile diplomacy with North Korea. During his first term, Trump met with Kim three times to discuss the North’s nuclear program. However, many experts say a quick resumption of the Kim-Trump summit is unlikely as Trump will first focus on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine also poses a challenge to efforts to revive diplomacy, experts say.
During a five-day plenum of the ruling Workers’ Party that ended on Friday, Kim called the US “the most reactionary state that considers anti-communism as its immutable state policy.” Kim said the US-South Korea-Japan security partnership was expanding into “a nuclear military bloc capable of deterring aggression.”
“This reality clearly shows what direction we should move forward and what and how we should do,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
It said Kim’s speech “clarified the strategy of the most stringent anti-US action to be aggressively launched” by North Korea for its long-term national interests and security.
KCNA did not elaborate on the anti-US strategy. But it said Kim set out tasks to enhance military capability through defense technology advancements and stressed the need to improve the mental toughness of North Korean troops.
Previous meetings between Trump and Kim had not only ended with their exchanging fiery rhetoric and threats of destruction, but also developed a personal relationship between them. Trump once famously said that he and Kim “fell in love.” But their talks ultimately failed in 2019 as they clashed over US-led sanctions on the North.
North Korea has since sharply increased the pace of its weapons testing activities to create more reliable nuclear missiles that can target the US and its allies. The US and South Korea have responded by expanding their military bilateral exercises and trilateral drills involving Japan, drawing a sharp rebuke from the North, which views such US-led exercises as invasion rehearsals.
Efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons are further complicated by its deepening military cooperation with Russia.
According to US, Ukrainian and South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops and conventional weapons systems to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. There are concerns that Russia could give North Korea advanced weapons technology in return, including help in building more powerful nuclear missiles.
Russia and China, locked in separate disputes with the US, have repeatedly blocked US-led efforts to impose more UN sanctions on North Korea despite its repeated missile tests in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. Have done.
Last month, Kim said his previous talks with the United States had confirmed Washington’s “irreconcilable” hostility toward his country and described its nuclear buildup as the only way to counter external threats.