North Korea rules out return to leader-to-leader diplomacy regardless of who wins US election

Kim Jong-un regime will never bargain over its ‘national prestige’, says North Korean diplomat at UN

North Korea appears to have ruled out the possibility of returning to leader-to-leader diplomacy with the president of the US regardless of who comes to power after elections in November.

The Kim Jong-un regime will never bargain over its “national prestige”, Pyongyang’s envoy to the UN, Song Kim, said at the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday.

The North Korean ambassador reaffirmed the country’s adherence to its nuclear weapons programme in defiance of warnings over growing security threats in the Korean Peninsula.

The remarks further diminished the chances of restarting meaningful nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, which have been on hold since the failed summit in Hanoi in February 2019 during the Trump administration.

It comes after a senior North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea said that Pyongyang could reopen nuclear talks with the US if Donald Trump is re-elected and is working to devise a new negotiating strategy.

"Whoever takes office in the US, we will only deal with the state entity called the US, not the mere administration," Mr Song said in his address at the UNGA.

"Likewise, any US administration will have to face the DPRK, which is different from what the US used to think," he said, referring to North Korea by its official name, without elaborating.

The envoy appeared to hint to the incoming US administration to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and renounce its efforts to denuclearise the country. Pyongyang has continued to double down on its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes under the Joe Biden administration.

Mr Trump, the Republican presidential candidate seeking a second term in the Oval Office, has previously hailed the relationship with Mr Kim as a key achievement of his presidency. Mr Trump even said the two “fell in love” through their letter exchanges. He also told a rally that Mr Kim would like to see him back in office: “I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth.”

However, the Kim regime has continued to deny that the change of leadership would have any impact on the relationship as Pyongyang has continued to ignore calls from president Biden’s administration for it to re-engage in talks.

Mr Song hit out at the US for inflaming tensions in the Korean Peninsula and claimed that nuclear weapons were "just made and exist to defend ourselves”.

"When it comes to the right to self-defence, a legitimate right of a sovereign state, we will never go back to the point in the far-off past," Mr Song said.

"When it comes to national prestige, we will never bargain over it with anyone for it was gained through the bloody struggle of the entire Korean people."

Ri Il Gyu, a North Korean diplomat who made headlines globally by defecting from Cuba to South Korea, told Reuters that Pyongyang’s diplomats were mapping out a strategy should Americans elect Mr Trump over vice president Kamala Harris.

The efforts would be to seek lifting of sanctions on its weapon programmes, eliciting economic aid and removing its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.