Ri Il-kyu, a former North Korean diplomat whose defection to South Korea was made public last month, said Thursday that the North Korean regime would be interested in resuming nuclear negotiations if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.
Ri said North Korea had missed an opportunity to make progress in talks with Trump. meeting He met with dictator Kim Jong Un in 2019, but blamed the failure of that meeting on the administration’s decision to put an “inexperienced” and “ignorant” military officer in charge of nuclear diplomacy. He said North Korea’s foreign policy establishment believes negotiations with Trump would go much better and that he wants a second chance to strike a deal that benefits North Korea.
“Kim Jong Un doesn’t know much about international relations or diplomacy or how to make strategic decisions,” Ri said.
“This time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will definitely take the power and lead the way. It will not be easy for President Trump to tie North Korea’s hands and feet again without giving them anything for four years,” he predicted.
Ri said North Korea has been drawn closer to Russia to get support for its nuclear missile program and ailing economy, and feels it can negotiate with Trump from a stronger position now that it has proven it can withstand the toughest Western sanctions with Russia’s backing.
“Russia engaged in an illegal deal that meant North Korea no longer had to rely on the United States for sanctions relief, which means Russia has deprived the United States of one of its key bargaining chips,” he said.
Ri added that North Korea was also willing to hold summits with Japan to resolve the issue. A long-lasting problem Japan claims that some of the Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea remain missing.
Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s predecessor and father Declared The matter was resolved in 2002 when Kim Jong-il reversed years of denials and admitted that his regime had abducted 13 Japanese nationals, most of whom he claimed were dead by 2002, and would not acknowledge the other victims.
North Korea Resisted Further discussion of the abduction victims has been ongoing for more than six years. In March 2024, Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, announced Said If Japan wants to make progress in its relationship with North Korea, it needs to “make a new start” and stop obsessing over the past, she said, describing the abduction issue as “an unresolved, unattainable problem.”
Ri said the harsh comments were just a tactic to “increase our negotiating power” until the Japanese government makes further economic concessions.
Lee Il-kyu spoke about North Korea diplomacy at his first press conference since South Korean media reported his defection in November 2023. He is a Cuba expert working for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs who defected while stationed in Havana. He is the highest-ranking defector to North Korea since 2016.
Two days before Mr. Li’s interview, Asia Times Claimed There was no reason to believe that the outcome of the 2024 US presidential elections would have a noticeable impact on North Korean diplomacy, since the Kim regime has little interest in denuclearization, no matter what it says to hawkish or dovish regimes in Washington and Seoul.
He argued that the end result of the Trump administration was little different from that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and that both administrations “elicited the same reaction from North Korea – exploring the possibility of negotiating and extracting concessions, and then walking away when it became clear that nothing was to be gained in the process.” Asia Times He advised whoever occupies the White House in 2025 to “expect the worst” from Pyongyang.
North Korea has not conducted any nuclear weapons tests since President Trump took office in 2017.
