Anchor: Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister and a high-ranking official in the country’s ruling party, has called on the United States to accept the North as a nuclear weapons state. In a statement released Tuesday, she clarified that dialogue alone will not lead to her country’s denuclearization, responding to reports from the White House that U.S. President Donald Trump is open to resuming bilateral talks.
Rosyn Park reports.

Reporter: The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in a statement carried by state media on Tuesday that the relationship between her brother and U.S. President Donald Trump is “not bad.”

However, she made clear that any effort to use the personal ties between the two leaders as a way to end the North’s nuclear weapons program will not work.
 
Kim Yo-jong, the vice department director of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, made the remarks after a White House official said last week that Trump remains open to engagement with the North Korean leader to achieve a “fully denuclearized” North Korea.

She stressed that things have changed since the first U.S.-North Korea summit in 2018 and said any attempt to deny North Korea’s position as a nuclear weapons state will be thoroughly rejected, adding that it would be “advisable to seek another way of contact.”

Kim Yo-jong said if the U.S. fails to accept the changed reality and persists in clinging to the “failed past,” a bilateral meeting will remain nothing more than a “hope” for the U.S. side.

North Korea analysts believe that although the statement dismisses any notion that denuclearization negotiations can simply resume where they left off, it leaves room for other kinds of diplomatic dialogue.

According to the White House, Trump still wants to talk to Kim Jong-un to denuclearize North Korea.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s presidential office said it will communicate with the U.S. on North Korea policy and work to optimize conditions for the resumption of talks between Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Rosyn Park, KBS World Radio News.