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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shakes hands with then-President Donald Trump of the US on June 30, 2019, ahead of a summit at Panmunjom in Korea. (Yonhap)

Letters exchanged between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and former US President Donald Trump were released Sunday by a national security and foreign affairs journal.

In his letters, Kim repeatedly indicated his desire to negotiate directly with Washington without going through Seoul, while also offering an unvarnished glimpse at his displeasure over joint South Korea-US military drills.

The letters appeared in the Korus Journal, a quarterly publication by the Korean-American Club, an association of current and former Korean foreign correspondents in the US.

In its October 2022 issue, the Korus Journal published the full text of 27 letters exchanged between Kim and Trump between April 2018 and August 2019. Excerpts of the letters were previously quoted in “Rage,” a book published in September 2020 by US journalist Bob Woodward.

The first correspondence between the two leaders took place on April 1, 2018, just after former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a top-secret visit to North Korea as director of central intelligence for the US. Kim wrote that he was prepared to take a big step toward resolving the problems between their two countries and marking the end of negative bilateral relations.

Trump replied that he was looking forward to cooperating to realize historic improvements in the relationship between the US and North Korea.

In his letters, Kim repeatedly indicated that he wanted to reach a deal through a “top-down” approach with Trump himself.

Expressing distrust of Pompeo during the implementation of the agreement from the two sides’ Singapore summit on June 12, 2018, Kim wrote that he wanted to negotiate directly with Trump.

In a letter sent to Trump shortly after an inter-Korea summit in Pyongyang on Sept. 18–20 of that year, Kim wrote that he hoped to discuss matters concerning denuclearization directly with Trump in the future, rather than with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. He also said he saw the “excessive interest President Moon is showing [. . .] in our matter” as “unnecessary.”

But while the two leaders continued to periodically exchange correspondence, North Korea-US relations reached an impasse with the breakdown of a summit in Hanoi on Feb. 27–28, 2019. In the last of the letters shared, which was dated Aug. 5, 2019, Kim expressed strong displeasure with joint South Korea-US military exercises and said he would be postponing scheduled working-level talks between the two sides.

“The most important cause of what your side considers the headache of ‘missile threats’ and nuclear problem is the military actions of your side and the South Korean military that threatens our safety,” he wrote.

“And until these elements are eliminated, no changed outcome can be anticipated,” he added.

Despite one additional round of working-level talks on Oct. 5, 2019, the relationship between North Korea and the US rapidly chilled.

By Jung In-hwan, staff reporter

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