The Koreas | Diplomacy | East Asia

North Korea Dismisses Trump’s Recent Overtures to Kim Jong Un

Days after U.S. President Donald Trump showed his interest in meeting with the leader of North Korea, Pyongyang responded by launching short-range ballistic missiles and publishing a harsh statement.

In this June 12, 2018 file photo, Kim Yo Jong (center) shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump while her brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, looks on amid the North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said there was no communication between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, according to a statement published by the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 19.

“As for the news from Washington that shortly ago, there was a communication between the leaders of the DPRK and the U.S., I am not aware of it at all, and perhaps it may be the only thing I do not know as regards the foreign policy of our supreme leadership,” Kim said. (DPRK is an acronym of North Korea’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.)

It was the first response of Pyongyang to U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un responded to his overtures. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump has discussed setting up a meeting with Kim Jong Un on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which will be held in November in Shenzhen, China. 

In the past few days, Trump has made friendly gestures to Kim Jong Un. He posted a photo of him and Kim taking a stroll during the Hanoi Summit in 2019 and a meme of Kim making a phone call, with text suggesting he was calling Trump. On August 17, Trump said on his Truth Social account that he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the joint military exercises with South Korea, which began on the same day. The Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises were supposed to last until August 27 but, according to local media reports, they will end on August 21.

South Korea’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries said on August 19 that Washington had not explained or given advance notice regarding Trump’s decision to scale down the joint military exercises. However, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung showed a positive attitude, saying that he will remain fully dedicated to serving as “a peacemaker” to facilitate and contribute to Trump’s peacemaking endeavors. 

As North Korea has long deemed the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises as an invasion rehearsal, some expected that Pyongyang would at least make a reciprocal gesture. However, Kim Yo Jong clearly downplayed Trump’s decision to scale back the ongoing joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea.

“As for the reduction of the U.S.-ROK joint........

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