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Kim-Trump friendship is pointless, North Korea says two years after summit in Singapore
- Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said the past two years of diplomacy has revealed the US is continuing to seek ‘regime change’ in Pyongyang
- ‘Nothing is more hypocritical than an empty promise,’ Ri said in a statement carried by state media
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North Korea on Friday said there would be little reason to maintain a relationship between leader Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump if Washington persisted with sanctions and pressure, as it again vowed to build up its military force to counter what it perceives as US threats.
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On the two-year anniversary of the leaders’ first summit in Singapore, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said the North would never again gift Trump with high-profile meetings and concessions he could boast as foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return.
“The question is whether there will be a need to keep holding hands shaken in Singapore, as we see that there is nothing of factual improvement to be made in the DPRK-US relations simply by maintaining personal relations between our supreme leadership and the US President,” Ri said in a statement carried by state media, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“Never again will we provide the US chief executive with another package to be used for (political) achievements without receiving any returns,” Ri said. “Nothing is more hypocritical than an empty promise.”
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In their 2018 summit in Singapore, the first-ever meeting between active leaders of the two countries, Kim and Trump agreed to improve bilateral relations and issued a vague statement on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur.
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