North Korea calls US push for its denuclearization ‘anachronistic dreams’
The statement came a day before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un, his first visit to North Korea in seven years.
“The United States’ claim to backbite North Korea’s status as a nuclear-armed state has no legally binding force, and no one will adhere to the United States’ unilateral rhetoric,” Kim’s sister and senior official Kim Yo Jong said, using the abbreviation of North Korea’s official name.
Also read: North Korea’s nuclear program ‘absolutely non-negotiable’: leader’s sister
He dismissed as “misinformation” a US announcement that President Donald Trump and Xi confirmed their shared goal of denuclearizing North Korea at their summit in Beijing last month.
“Some officials in the United States have failed to wake up from their escapist and anachronistic dreams,” Kim Yo Jong said.
North Korea has been focusing on expanding its nuclear arsenal since Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019. Experts say the North Korean leader wants international recognition as a nuclear state so he can demand the lifting of international economic sanctions against North Korea.
During a visit to a new nuclear material production facility last week, Kim Jong Un said North Korea would support the country’s nuclear forces at an “exponentially increasing rate.” On Sunday, North Korean state media reported that Kim Jong Un visited a weapons factory the previous day and called for the country’s missile production capacity to be increased by 2.5 times under the five-year plan period.
In her statement, Kim Yo Jong accused the United States and South Korea of pressing for “remitting arms build-up” and said her sister’s effort to “steadily strengthen nuclear war deterrence for self-defense” was “an irreversible end result that must be unconditionally realized.”
Analysts say Xi’s visit to North Korea is largely meant to reassert China’s influence over North Korea, whose foreign policy priority has shifted to Russia in recent years. They say Xi will likely avoid directly raising the issue of denuclearization and will offer economic aid programs during his meeting with Kim Jong Un.
North Korea has sent troops and conventional weapons to Russia to support its war effort against Ukraine. South Korean and U.S. officials say North Korea has received economic and other aid from Russia in return.
