North Korea reportedly denied any direct communication between leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump. It also dismissed the US’s decision to scale down joint military drills with South Korea, saying that Washington’s stance toward Pyongyang remained antagonistic.
“The relationship between the two leaders remains excellent,” Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the , said in a statement issued through state media KCNA on Wednesday.
“However, the US’s hostile policies toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea haven’t changed,” she added.
The statement came after Trump on Monday said Kim Jong Un responded to requests for the two leaders to have a conversation.
On Tump-Kim talks
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said she is “completely unaware” whether her brother communicated with as Trump claimed this week, according to CNN.
Trump told reporters Monday that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation, shortly after the president called for reducing joint military drills with South Korea, a close and long-standing US ally.
Trump did not elaborate on the contact. He added Wednesday that he intends to meet Kim later this year, but he didn’t offer details and would not say whether he has exchanged any letters with North Korea’s leader.
In her statement, Kim Yo Jong said of the reported “communication” between Trump and her brother: “I am not aware of it at all, and perhaps it may be the only thing I do not know as regards the foreign policy of our supreme leadership.”
She, however, acknowledged that her brother has a “great relationship” with Trump and “personally has good memories and feelings” for him.
She said that while had an excellent relationship, the US remained an enemy of Pyongyang.
“The United States’ hostile policy toward the DPRK has not changed, and the United States and its followers are vigorously carrying out hostile military activities against the DPRK even at this very moment,” she said in a statement carried by North Korean state media, as per The Guardian.
Trump met with Kim Jong Un three times during his first term, but the talks didn’t produce any diplomatic breakthrough. The US president has nonetheless repeatedly touted his good relations with the North Korean leader.
Trump orders military to cut joint exercises with South Korea
Earlier on Sunday, Trump ordered the Pentagon to , citing the long-time ally’s lack of support for the ongoing war in Iran and because the drills sent an “inappropriate signal” toward North Korea.
“…based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump said in a post on TRUTH Social.
He added that the exercises slated to begin this week are not only costly but “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his time in the White House.
Trump wrote, “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea.”
He said when he asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join “us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’.”
‘We are uninterested’
Reacting to Trump’s announcement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong said, as per Bloomberg, in Wednesday’s statement, “Regarding the US president’s sudden announcement of the scaling down of the US-South Korea joint military drills, we are uninterested and don’t think the decision is even worth commenting on.
She added that any reduction in scale or duration did not change what she called the provocative and aggressive nature of the drills.
“If the US side is trying to tout its decision as some kind of an ‘act of goodwill,’ they will not get the response that they want,” Kim said in her statement, published in Korean.
