In late August, during their meeting in White House, U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung exchanged positive views about restoring deadlocked nuclear talks with Pyongyang. A month later, Kim Jong Un, the autocratic leader of North Korea, explicitly rejected that possibility by saying that the denuclearization of his country is no longer negotiable.
According to North Korea’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday, North Korea held the 13th Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly over the weekend. During the event, Kim made an unexpectedly long speech targeting the U.S. and South Korea to demonstrate his clear intention not to use his country’s nuclear weapons as bargaining chips anymore.
“The concept of ‘denuclearization’ has already lost its meaning,” Kim was quoted as saying in KCNA’s report. He also said that the U.S. and South Korea destroyed “the pretext and basis” for talks with North Korea as soon as they brought up the notion of “phased denuclearization.”
He clearly showed his deep mistrust over Washington and Seoul’s approach to tackle Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal while reaffirming that the status of North Korea as a nuclear state is here to stay
“The world already knows well what the United States does after it forces a country to give up its weapons and disarm it,” Kim said. “We will never put down our nuclear weapons.”
That’s a marked difference from Kim’s willingness to engage in multiple rounds of diplomacy in 2018-19. During his first term, Trump actively engaged in dialogue with Kim to resolve the decades-long security conflicts on the Korean Peninsula, but that effort fell apart with the breakdown of the Kim-Trump summit in Hanoi in February 2019. Trump blew up a historic chance to construct a long-term plan to denuclearize North Korea by demanding that Kim accept a so-called “all for all” deal during the meeting: full and immediate denuclearization for full and immediate sanctions relief.
From Kim’s perspective, that was an unacceptable deal posing extreme risks to the safety of his regime. And when Kim rejected the all-or-nothing proposal, Trump walked out of the summit meeting room – forcing North Korea’s supreme leader to return to Pyongyang with no achievements. Adding insult to injury, Trump’s reckless decision was praised by U.S. experts and Washington policymakers, who claimed that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”
The failed summit, and the personal embarrassment it caused for Kim, seems to have utterly destroyed his willingness to engage in dialogue not only with the United States, but with South Korea as well. Kim’s fury was targeted at former South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had initiated a peace process on the Korean Peninsula in 2018 when South Korea hosted the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Two months before his first meeting with Trump in Singapore in June 2018, Kim held his first summit meeting with Moon at Panmunjom, where they reportedly discussed how to talk to Trump. Moon flew to Pyongyang in September of that year. It is presumed that the South Korean president was a mediator between Trump and Kim for the Hanoi summit – which was scheduled five months after the September inter-Korean summit. Pyongyang might have thought that Moon was acting as a messenger from Trump to Kim at that moment.
In this context, South Korea has been blamed by Pyongyang for the failed Hanoi summit more than the U.S. – which is a clear demonstration of why North Korea believes that South Korea is not a legitimate counterpart with whom it can negotiate or consult.
North Korea has always claimed that its nuclear development is for self-defense. Kim reiterated the position during his recent speech, but he brought up an updated background to justify his stance.
“Becoming a nuclear-armed state was an indispensable choice taken at the crossroads between our nation’s survival and extinction,” Kim said. “That is precisely why we have written into the supreme law of the Republic that nuclear possession is sacred and absolute, something that cannot be harmed or changed under any circumstances.” (The Republic refers to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is the official name of North Korea.)
In September 2023, North Korea amended its constitution to stipulate a policy of nuclear-force building. Since then, many pundits and government officials in South Korea and the United States have argued that this is a clear signal that Pyongyang is no longer willing to accept any deals aiming for the denuclearization of North Korea.
Kim implied that he would not even consider denuclearizing his country in return for Washington lifting the devastating economic sanctions in place against North Korea. It is clear that he would not show up for negotiations unless some dramatic changes are made to change his mind.
“The sanctions imposed by hostile forces have given us a learning effect that made us stronger, and have cultivated endurance and resistance that will not be crushed by any pressure,” Kim said.
North Korea’s moves to consolidate its power as a nuclear state have grown more alarming since it began to offer support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by deploying soldiers and supplying ammunition, including short-range ballistic missiles. Although no details of what Russia has offered North Korea as returns for its support have been confirmed, there have been assumptions that Russia would consider transferring sensitive military technology to North Korea. Pyongyang, for example, is eager to successfully develop its own spy satellite. With Kim’s recent visit to Beijing, a new Cold War seems to have been constructed in the East Asia region between the Japan-South Korea-U.S. coalition and China-North Korea-Russia cooperation. His appearance right next to China’s Xi Jinping at Kim’s first-ever multilateral diplomatic event allowed the North Korean leader to show off his leverage in the region.
Referring to the U.S. and South Korea, Kim said, “They must be aware that if hostile forces keep their reckless displays of force around us without limit, they may provoke our patience.” Although he said that he does not want a “dangerous development,” he clearly implied that he can use his nuclear weapons for a preemptive first strike when needed.
When Trump won the presidential election in November 2024, many assumed that he would try to have another meeting with Kim. Despite Pyongyang’s mistrust of Washington and Seoul, Kim left room to renew dialogue with the U.S. president as he said he has “good memories” of Trump.
However, Kim’s remarks toward Seoul were less forgiving. “We will not sit down with South Korea and will do nothing together with it,” he said. “I make clear that we will not deal with it in any way.”
What it means is no matter who becomes the president in South Korea, North Korea will never consider it as its counterpart. And this idea clearly reflects North Korea’s stance on reunification.
“We will clearly fix in law that we and South Korea are two heterogeneous states separated by a border that can never become one,” Kim said. Narrating the historical development of South Korea’s policy and stance on North Korea and reunification, Kim said that “unification is by no means necessary.” That stance reflected his declaration in January 2024 that North Korea was abandoning the long-held official goal of unification. Instead of estranged compatriots, South Korea is considered a “bitterly hostile state,” as Kim said in his latest speech.
During an interview with the BBC, which was conducted ahead of his visit to New York to preside over the discussion at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, South Korea’s President Lee said he can accept a deal to “freeze” North Korea’s nuclear programs. He acknowledged that, realistically, North Korea will not abandon its nuclear programs, which are seen as vital to the security of the Kim regime. However, a nuclear freeze for North Korea would depend upon a consistent approach by the United States, South Korea, and North Korea to build a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. Considering Kim’s clearly negative stance toward Lee and Trump’s nasty treatment of South Korea, that sort of nuanced diplomacy seems unlikely to occur.