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An image from Korean Central Television showing Jo Yong-won

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s business summation report at the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) congress on May 6-7 included a pledge to “improve and normalize relations” with “countries that respect [North Korea’s] autonomy and treat us favorably, even if they have been in hostile relations with us in the past.”

Kim did not actually single out the US by name as a country that has been “in hostile relations.” But given Pyongyang’s past vociferous calls for Washington to abandon its “antagonistic” policies, the message‘s target appears clear.

Also noteworthy is the report’s reference to “autonomy” as a condition for improving relations, which reads as a call to acknowledge the legitimacy of Kim‘s regime in a narrow sense without attempting to trigger its collapse. It’s a message that could be seen as the key prerequisite for improving ties with Washington.

Kim‘s remarks read as a long-term strategy for foreign relations rather than a pledge to undertake any specific, immediate actions to mend fences with the US. While a practical improvement would require some degree of give and take, demands from the US accounted for a major portion of Kim’s report. In particular, it demanded an end to “antagonistic policies” toward the North, the replacement of the current armistice with a peace agreement, a withdrawal of US forces from the Korean Peninsula, and a suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea.

In contrast, the report showed little progress in answering Washington‘s demands from Pyongyang. On the issue of denuclearization, Kim pledged to “work to achieve global denuclearization.” As a response to Seoul and Washington’s demands for Pyongyang to end its nuclear program, it reads instead as a promise to work toward nuclear arms reduction as another nuclear power on equal footing with the US. It‘s a substantial difference from the US position demanding the verifiable and irreversible abandonment of the North’s nuclear program.

The report also included pledges not to use nuclear weapons first or to transfer or proliferate weapons or technology - neither of which is anything new. In that sense, the US is unlikely to regard Kim‘s report as forward-thinking.

But with Pyongyang proposing communication to explain Kim’s report to Washington in greater detail, it is possible that the US government could agree in the name of “exploratory dialogue.” Many in Washington have sensed the need to manage tensions on the Korean Peninsula amid their escalation this year. North Korea’s advancements in nuclear and missile technology have also been the subject of growing alarm within the US government.

The question of whether the Six-Party Talks on the nuclear issue can be resumed hinges on how much common ground the North and US can find in whatever exploratory dialogue takes place. Washington has stressed the need for sincere steps toward denuclearization from Pyongyang before the talks can begin again, while arguing that any peace agreement discussions must have denuclearization as a prerequisite.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent and Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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