By Michelle Nichols and David Brunnstrom
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea appeared on Monday to dismiss the possibility of a return to the personal diplomacy its leader Kim Jong Un had with former President Donald Trump, no matter who wins the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
“Whoever takes office in the U.S., we will only deal with the state entity called the U.S., not the mere administration,” Pyongyang’s ambassador to the United Nations Song Kim told the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York.
“Likewise, any U.S. administration will have to face the DPRK, which is different from what the U.S. used to think,” he said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name.
A senior North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea told Reuters recently that North Korea wants to reopen nuclear talks with the United States if Trump is reelected and is working to devise a new negotiating strategy.
Trump engaged in both fiery brinkmanship and unprecedented diplomacy with North Korea during his previous term that ended in 2021.
The defecting diplomat, Ri Il Gyu, said Pyongyang’s diplomats were mapping out a strategy should Americans elect Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, with the goal of lifting sanctions on its weapons programs, removing its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and eliciting economic aid.
A summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Trump in Vietnam in 2019 collapsed over the issue of sanctions and a blunt U.S. call for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has ignored calls from President Joe Biden’s administration for it to reengage in talks.
Trump said during an election debate in June that China’s Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin “don’t respect” Biden and that he was driving the country “into World War Three.”
At an August press conference, Trump said Kim Jong Un “liked me a lot.”
“He doesn’t like this group,” Trump added, referring to the Biden-Harris administration. “We are in great danger. We’re at great danger of being in World War Three.”
Song Kim said U.S. hostility and the nuclear threat it had posed to North Korea for more than 70 years compelled Pyongyang to acquire nuclear weapons.
He said Kim Jong Un had said, “we can choose either dialogue or confrontation, but we should go further in getting ourselves fully prepared for confrontation.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nicholls and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Howard Goller)