Reference News Network reported on October 1 The White House said on September 30 that President Trump still intends to have a dialogue with North Korean State Commissioner Kim Jong Un without pre-setting conditions.The White House also stressed that the US policy towards the DPRK remained unchanged.

White House officialsly said the same day that they asked the Associated Press about ¡°whether the Trump administration intends to dialogue with the DPRK without talking about nuclear weapons.¡± It is noteworthy that the official did not directly mention the existing principles and goals of the US government¡¯s ¡°North Korea denuclearization.¡±

The picture shows the data map of Kim Jong-un's speech

The report noted that the aforementioned statements are either for the purpose of creating an atmosphere for the US-DPRK dialogue. That is, the Trump administration, although it insists on implementing the "North Korea denuclearization" policy, does not mean that the dialogue can be resumed only if North Korea agrees to include denuclearization as a topic of talks.

According to the report, there are opinions that the United States has responded to the information released by Kim Jong Un to the U.S. on September 21, in a speech at the 13th meeting of the 14th Supreme People's Conference of North Korea said that it has good memories with Trump so far, if the United States gives up its attachment to the denuclearization of North Korea and recognizes the reality, there is no reason for the DPRK not to communicate with the U.S. side.

According to reports, Trump is expected to visit South Korea at the end of October to attend the 32nd APEC Economic Leaders' Informal Meeting. Whether he will take this opportunity to meet with Kim Jong-un has attracted much attention.

Extended reading

Kim Jong Un's latest statement: I still have fond memories of President Trump

According to a report by the Korean Central News Agency on September 26th, the DPRK delegation headed by Kim Xianjing, Deputy Foreign Minister of the DPRK, will go to new york, USA to attend the 80th UN General Assembly. Yonhap News Agency reported on the same day that the DPRK delegation had arrived at JFK International Airport in new york on the evening of 25th local time. It is worth noting that South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has just finished his visit to this session of the UN General Assembly and returned to China.

This is the first "first show" of the United Nations General Assembly in seven years after senior North Korean officials, and it is also the first time since 2018 that senior North Korean officials other than their permanent representatives in the United Nations have entered U.S. territory.

However, considering that Kim Xianjing has repeatedly publicly criticized UN Secretary-General Guterres' "denuclearization" remarks on behalf of North Korea, some analysts believe that his visit will convey the spirit of the latest speech made by Kim Jong Un, the top leader of North Korea, on September 21st: North Korea's "nuclear" road will not turn back and "it will never give up its nuclear weapons".

On June 12, 2018, Kim Jong Un and Trump held their first meeting at the Capella Hotel in Singapore

Brought back a "greeting" message to Kim Jong-un

According to official reports, Kim will deliver a speech on September 29 local time, the last day of the High Level Week of the United Nations General Assembly. This is also the first time North Korean representatives have spoken at the UN General Assembly in seven years. After Kim Jong-un became the highest leader of North Korea, North Korea sent foreign ministers Li Yuan and Li Yuan Ho to attend the UN General Assembly from 2014 to 2018, but has not sent a high-level representative to attend the meeting since the breakdown of the peace process on the peninsula in 2019.

According to past reports by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim Xianjing is a professional diplomat. He was appointed as the DPRK ambassador to Romania in 2010 and transferred to the ambassador to Serbia in 2012. Since then, he has been in charge of the DPRK's foreign affairs with Europe for a long time. In 2017, Kim Xianjing became the director of the European Bureau of the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the same time, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is extremely tense, and North Korea is actively preparing for the sixth nuclear test.Kim Sensei in a special period was ordered to visit Sweden, Spain, France, Austria and other countries, and exchanged with officials of European governments, congressmen and academics and media people, attending the "half-official half-people" conference, stating "the necessity of North Korea's nuclear weapons".

It is worth noting that China¡¯s report of Kim¡¯s visit to the Korean Peninsula at the time repeatedly mentioned foreign officials emphasizing that ¡°the only way to alleviate tensions through dialogue and peaceful settlement is the only way.¡± while some of the European countries Kim¡¯s visit did play an important role in the Korean Peninsula peace process from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, Kim¡¯s promotion to the role of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for European Affairs followed by the transfer to the role of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for International Organizations before 2022.

After North Korea began to implement the new strategy of "active diplomacy" in 2023, Kim Xianjing became an active figure in North Korea's participation in multilateral diplomatic activities. In 2024, as the special envoy of the North Korean government, he led a delegation to attend the 19th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement and the 3rd South Summit, conveyed Kim Jong-un's greetings to the Presidents of Uganda and Equatorial Guinea, and met with the Vice-President of Cuba and the Vice-President of Turkey.

In a speech on September 23, Kim said that if the United States ¡°does not stick to the absurd and nonsensical denuclearization and genuinely seek to coexist peacefully with us on the basis of acknowledging reality, then we have no reason not to contact with the United States.¡±

One detail is that in June this year, some American media revealed that Trump wanted to send a personal letter to Kim Jong-un, but it was "rejected" by the DPRK when it was delivered through the "new york channel" (the DPRK mission to the United Nations in new york) commonly used for DPRK-US contact. The White House did not deny this matter, but said that Trump "remains open to the exchange of personal letters".

At that time, some analysts pointed out that this incident meant at least two points. First of all, the "new york channel" between the DPRK and the United States is still operating normally and can communicate general affairs. Secondly, Trump realized that simply "sending a letter" to Kim Jong-un through work-level channels did not give enough respect to the DPRK, and the DPRK and the United States needed more reciprocal contact.

According to public reports by North Korean media, during the previous visits, Kim, who served as a senior North Korean official, had brought back a "greeting" letter from foreign leaders for Kim Jong Un.

Kim Jong-un and Trump had "interactions" such as exchanging personal letters and greeting from a distance. On September 23rd this year, Kim Jong-un also mentioned in his latest speech: "Personally, I still have good memories of the current US President Trump."

North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Sun Kyung (first from left) leaves for Uganda in January 2024. Photo/Korean Central News Agency

¡°Really a concession.¡±

The outside world is also very concerned about whether, in the speech scheduled for September 29, Kim will mention South Korean President Li Ying-ming, who was described by Kim Jong-un as "not taking into account at all."

On September 23rd, after Kim Jong-un once again reiterated that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons, Lee Jae-myung, who used to insist on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, suddenly threw out a brand-new "END initiative" in his speech to the UN General Assembly: Exchange, Normalization and Denuclearization.

Although the new initiative still contains denuclearization content, Li emphasized the synchronous development of the three, in fact giving up the principle of denuclearization as a prerequisite for normalization of relations. he also further put forward a new "stage-by-stage denuclearization" proposal, supporting North Korea to agree to freeze nuclear weapons production rather than abandon nuclear weapons.

Li said in an interview with the media that North Korea already has enough to defend its nuclear weapons, while for South Korea, ¡°The problem is whether we continue to try in vain to the ultimate goal (denuclearization) or to set more realistic goals and some of them.¡±

Later, South Korea's Unification Minister Zheng Dongyong further explained to the media that in the so-called "END Initiative", the Lee Jae-myung government will first promote dialogue and exchanges, because "denuclearization may take 10 to 20 years", and the Lee Jae-myung government will focus on solving the current challenges.

However, Lee Jae-myung's new policy has caused an uproar in South Korea. Yonhap News Agency pointed out that the new South Korean government no longer insists on dialogue and contact around denuclearization, and is even willing to "simultaneously promote" the normalization of relations, which makes people worry that South Korea will "actually recognize that North Korea has nuclear weapons". Wei Shengluo, director of the National Security Office, and Zheng Dongyong, minister of unification, gave different interpretations of the policy details, which also showed that there were still great differences within Lee Jae-myung's team on how to face the "nuclear North Korea".

A number of Korean and American analysts pointed out to China News Weekly that the reason why Lee Jae-myung changed his position on denuclearization, a key and principled issue of the South Korean government, was that the initial policy of easing the situation of the new South Korean government was not recognized by the North Korean side. In his latest speech, Kim Jong-un mentioned that South Korea and the United States are still conducting joint military exercises and are still repeating the demand of "denuclearization". "We are tired of seeing what successive rulers of the Republic of Korea are pursuing".

In this context, Li has chosen to bypass ¡°denuclearization¡± in Ming, putting forward the ¡°END Initiative¡± as a pragmatic response.U.S. renowned think tank ¡°Stinstein Center¡± published on September 22, pointing out that the issue of denuclearization and unification has become the main challenge of the peninsula peace process, so ¡°the United States and its allies may need to abandon the long-standing policy of denuclearization and unification that has hindered negotiations.¡±

In addition, from a military point of view, since 2022, North Korea, using external environmental changes, has promoted the "nuclear arsenal multiplication" program, and achieved new research and development in the fields of solid-fuel rockets, missile launchers, sea-based launching platforms, aimed at improving the survival of nuclear weapons.

In this context, Li in Ming and Zhengdong swing mentioned that South Korea's analysis believes that North Korea can now produce 15 to 20 new nuclear weapons a year, and has over 2,000 kilograms of high-enriched uranium stocks; with which it continues to confront, let North Korea produce more nuclear weapons, rather than pursue the mitigation of the situation and freeze production.

However, for Li's "change of mouth", North Korea and the United States haveined a subtle "ignorance". "Li's openly stated that it is acceptable to accept the "nuclear freeze", is a positive initiative, but Trump will eventually agree on what, who says it is not allowed," said Mark Barry, an American North Korean expert who has participated in the six-party talks and visited North Korea many times.

¡°Accepting North Korea¡¯s nuclear status to a certain extent is the only way to ease tensions in Northeast Asia at the moment, and the problem is that Trump may feel uncomfortable about it, because it means he acknowledges the need to change his policy toward the DPRK in the last term,¡± Barry said.

Reporter: Cao Ran

Edited by:Ðì·½Çå