North Korean leader vows to implement anti-US policy before Trump takes office – National
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to use a “tough” policy against the US, media reported on Sunday, less than a month before Donald Trump takes office as US president.
Trump's return to the White House raises the possibility of high-level talks with North Korea. During his first term, Trump met with Kim three times for talks on the North's nuclear program. Many experts, however, say that the immediate resumption of the Kim-Trump summit is unlikely to prompt Trump to focus on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea's support for Russia's war with Ukraine is also a challenge to efforts to revive talks, experts say.
During a five-day meeting of the ruling Workers' Party that ended on Friday, Kim called the US “a very reactionary country that views anti-Communism as an unwavering national policy.” Kim said the US-South Korea-Japan security relationship is developing into a “violent nuclear war club.”
“This fact clearly shows in what direction we should progress and what we should do and how,” Kim said, according to an official in the Korean Central News Agency.
It said Kim's speech “clarified a very tough anti-US strategy to be launched by force” by North Korea for its long-term interests and security.
KCNA did not elaborate on the anti-US strategy. But it said Kim had carried out activities to strengthen the military's capabilities through advances in defense technology and stressed the need to improve the mental toughness of North Korea's military.
Past meetings between Trump and Kim have not only ended their exchange of fiery rhetoric and threats of annihilation, but have developed a personal connection. Trump once said that he and Kim “love each other.” But their talks eventually broke down in 2019, as they clashed over US-led sanctions on the North.
North Korea has since greatly increased the pace of its weapons testing activities to develop reliable nuclear missiles aimed at the US and its allies. The US and South Korea have responded by increasing their bilateral and trilateral military drills that include Japan, drawing strong criticism from the North, which views such US-led exercises as offensive exercises.
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Other serious efforts to ensure that North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons in order to gain economic and political benefits are the deepening of its military cooperation with Russia.
According to US, Ukrainian and South Korean inspections, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 soldiers and conventional weapons systems to support Moscow's war against Ukraine. There are concerns that Russia may return advanced weapons technology to North Korea, including help to build more powerful nuclear missiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that 3,000 North Korean soldiers were killed and wounded in the battle in Russia's Kursk region. It was Ukraine's first significant estimate of North Korean casualties since North Korea began sending troops to Russia in October.
Russia and China, locked in separate conflicts with the US, have repeatedly blocked a US-led push to impose UN sanctions on North Korea despite its repeated missile tests in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
Last month, Kim said his previous talks with the United States only confirmed Washington's “unrelenting” hostility toward his country and described his nuclear arsenal as the only way to fight external threats.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
