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Kim Kye-gwan, advisor to North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Hankyoreh archives)

On Oct. 24, a senior North Korean diplomat expressed his sincere “hope that a motive force to overcome all the obstacles between the DPRK [North Korea] and the US and to advance [their] bilateral relations in [a] better direction will be provided on the basis of the close relationship” between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.

“When I met the chairman of the State Affairs Commission [Kim Jong-un] and reported to him the pending problems arising in external affairs including the issue of the relations between the DPRK and the US a few days ago, he said that the relationship between him and President Trump is special,” said Kim Kye-gwan, advisor to North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“We want to see how wisely the US will pass the end of the year,” Kim added, noting that where “there is a will, there is a way.”

Kim’s hope that the US will pass the end of the year “wisely” reaffirms the basic position expressed by Kim Jong-un in his policy speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly on Apr. 12, in which he expressed willingness to hold a third summit, if the US wants one, as long as the US devises an approach that both sides can share (echoing language about a “new calculation” by the US). The gist of Kim Kye-gwan’s statement is Kim Jong-un wants to hold a third summit with the US before the end of the year.

Kim Kye-gwan’s deliberate emphasis on having met with Kim Jong-un demonstrates that he’s speaking on behalf of the North Korean leader in this statement. This approach is substantially different from the one advocated by the US, namely of covering adequate ground in working-level talks before moving on to a summit. Nevertheless, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha gave Kim’s statement a “positive assessment” during a press conference on Thursday because it contained an “expression of trust between the [North Korean and US] leaders.”

The statement represented the first signal that North Korea has given the outside world about North Korea-US negotiations since an article in the Oct. 16 edition of the Rodong Sinmun stated that Kim Jong-un had conceived of a “great operation” while climbing Mt. Paektu.

Statement of much milder tone than those of N. Korean foreign ministry

Furthermore, this statement took a much milder tone toward the US than statements by chief negotiator Kim Myong-gil and a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Oct. 6, immediately after the North Korea-US working-level negotiations in Stockholm, which the North said had “broken down.” Kim Myong-gil said he was “very displeased that the US had no intention of resolving the problem,” while the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that North Korea “had no intention of engaging in such disgusting negotiations again.”

Kim Kye-gwan did include a caveat in his statement, however: “The problem is that far from the political judgment and intention of President Trump, [the] Washington political circle and DPRK policy makers [in] the US administration are hostile to the DPRK for no reason, preoccupied with the Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice.”

In short, Kim Kye-gwan’s statement was focused on the “top-down” approach to dialogue, in which momentum is derived from Kim and Trump’s chummy relationship, and on using that approach to reach a breakthrough. But it’s uncertain whether North Korea will accede to a second round of working-level talks with the US.

“There’s a possibility of one or two rounds of [North Korea-US] working level talks being held before the end of the year. The question of whether South Korea and the US decide to hold joint military exercises in their Security Consultative Meeting in November is key” to North Korea-US relations and other developments on the Korean Peninsula, said a spokesperson for the Institute for National Security Strategy, which reports to the National Intelligence Service, during a press conference on Thursday.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]