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US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stroll through the garden at a hotel in Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12, 2018, during the first-ever summit between North Korea and the US. (Hankyoreh file photo)

North Korea’s state news agency reported Tuesday that while Donald Trump “[buoyed] a lingering desire for the prospects of the DPRK-US relations” in his Republican National Convention speech, North Koreans “do not care about” such sentiments.

In a commentary titled “Whether Second Hand of DPRK-US Confrontation Stops or Not Depends on US Act,” the Korean Central News Agency quoted Trump while making its argument: “I got along with them and it is nice to get along with someone who has a lot of nuclear weapons and otherwise.”
 
The commentary marks North Korea’s first official response to developments in the US since Trump accepted the Republican nomination on July 18.
 
What’s most notable is that the commentary brought up personal relations between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. While the KCNA acknowledged that “Trump, when he was president, tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of states in the relations between states,” it also stated that he did not bring about any “substantial positive change.” 

“The foreign policy of a state and personal feelings must be strictly distinguished,” it said.
 
From 2018 to 2019, Trump met Kim three times: twice during bilateral US-North Korea summits and once at a summit in Panmunjom that included South Korea. North Korea seems to be secretly anticipating the coming of a second Trump administration, with Trump looking likely to emerge victorious from the US presidential election in November.
 
“The US had better make a proper choice in the matter of how to deal with the DPRK in the future, while sincerely agonizing the gains and losses in the DPRK-US confrontation,” the agency went on, adding that “whether the second hand of the DPRK-US confrontation stops or not entirely depends on the US.”
 
This is a far cry from North Korea’s initial intent to not engage in any sort of dialogue or compromise with the US. During the ninth plenary meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which was held from Dec. 26 to Dec. 30, 2023, Kim claimed that he would counter the “frantic nuclear war threat racket and all-out confrontation of the US and its vassal forces with nukes and all-out confrontation,” dismissing any chance of dialogue and compromise.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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