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Kim Yong-chol, chairman of North Korea’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, delivers a personal letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to US President Donald Trump at the White House on Jan. 18.

Kim Yong-chol, chairman of North Korea’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, said on Nov. 19 that the US “is well advised not to dream of the negotiations for denuclearization before scrapping its hostile policy towards the DPRK.”

In a “Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee statement” published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) early in the morning that day, Kim said, “From now on, the DPRK will get due compensation for every administrative achievement the US president has talked too much about for over a year.”

His position was echoed by remarks made by Foreign Ministry Roving Ambassador Kim Myong-gil, North Korea’s representative to working-level talks with the US, in response to questions from a KCNA reporter the same afternoon.

“DPRK-US dialogue is impossible unless the US makes a bold decision to drop the hostile policy towards the DPRK,” Kim said.

In his statement, Kim Yong-chol took aim at remarks by US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who described a Nov. 17 announcement postponing the South Korea-US combined air exercise Vigilant Ace as a “measure of goodwill” to establish an environment conducive to diplomatic efforts and promoting peace, while calling for a “good response” from Pyongyang.

“[W]e demand that the US drop out of the drill or stop it once and for all,” Kim said in his statement.

“The postponement of the drill does not mean ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and is not helpful to the diplomatic efforts for the settlement of issues,” he continued.

“If the US is concerned about the DPRK-US dialogue, the question is why it persistently depends on ‘human rights’ racket, sanctions and pressure,” he added, criticizing the US as “resorting to every crafty artifice [. . .] to gain time to get out of the critical situation in the run-up to the year-end and the beginning of the new year.”

The gist of Kim’s statement was a message that the current moment calls not for additional denuclearization measures from the North, but additional “corresponding measures” from the US. The additional corresponding measures that Pyongyang is seeking can be summed up as being twofold: a suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea, which were described in a Nov. 13 State Affairs Commission spokesperson’s statement as the “the biggest factor of the repeating vicious circle of the DPRK-US relations,” and the loosening or removal of sanctions, which were described in Kim’s statement as representative of “threats to the security and development of the DPRK.”

The series of seven different statements coming from North Korea over the past two weeks have been variations on two main themes: that a third North Korea-US summit needs to happen, and that Pyongyang does not intend to undergo a repeat of its experience with the second summit in Hanoi.

Messages calling for a third North Korea-US summit include a Nov. 18 statement by Foreign Ministry Advisor Kim Kye-gwan, who read US President Donald Trump’s tweet calling for a meeting as “a signification indicative of another DPRK-U.S. summit”; a Nov. 14 statement by Kim Yong-chol, who said he “appreciate[s the tweet] as part of positive efforts of the US side to maintain the momentum of the DPRK-US negotiations”; and a Nov. 14 statement by Kim Yong-gil, who said the North was “ready to meet with the US at any place and any time.”

On the other hand, the message that Pyongyang does not intend to suffer the same outcome was vehemently expressed in the Nov. 19 statement by Kim Yong-chol, who said North Korea has “nothing pressing and [has] no intention to sit on the table with the tricky US,” and the Nov. 18 statement by Kim Kye-gwan, who stressed “get[ting] compensation” from “President Trump.” While leader Kim Jong-un has not declared a suspension of negotiations, the positions show Pyongyang pushing harder for a “new method of calculation” from the US, as first mentioned in a Supreme People’s Assembly policy speech on Apr. 12.

“With Kim Jong-un attempting to focus on building the economy, they are demanding not a ‘postponement’ of South Korea-US exercises where he has no idea what will happen next spring, but a ‘definite suspension’ of the exercises,” explained a former senior South Korean official.

“How President Trump responds is going to be crucial,” the former official predicted.

South Korean Minister of Unification Kim Yeon-chul, who is currently visiting the US, said after a meeting and lunch lasting over two hours with US Deputy Secretary of State and Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun in Washington on Nov. 18 that the US “also appears to be considering various things for the sake of the [North Korea-US] negotiations’ success.”

“I think there will be an opportunity for the US to discuss those things [in connection with North Korea’s demands for a suspension of exercises],” Kim added.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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