Kim Jong-un vows to strengthen Pyongyang-Beijing ties, amid efforts to restart US talks
- The North Korean leader says he will make every effort to strengthen ties with China and that the alliance is a ‘strategic option’
- This comes as the North seeks to resume stalled denuclearisation talks with the US
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Relations between the two allies, which had cooled over the North’s repeated missile tests, have warmed in recent months through a series of talks between Kim and Xi.
Xi visited Pyongyang in June – the first trip by a Chinese head of state to North Korea in 14 years – while Kim has visited China four times since March 2018.
“Our meetings in Beijing and Pyongyang fully demonstrated before the world my and Comrade General Secretary [Xi’s] firm will to invariably consolidate and develop the DPRK-China friendship,” Kim said, describing it as “precious” and a “strategic option”. DPRK stands for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“I will make every possible effort to successfully carry forward and glorify great DPRK-China friendship on the road of socialism and bring about a rosier future,” Kim added.
Professor Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said the North has dropped its traditional revolutionary language such as “blood ties” and “revolutionary comradeship” when referring to China in favour of more conventional diplomatic expressions.
“This is part of the North’s efforts to project an image as a normal state to the world, not as a pariah state,” he said.
But it urged the US to come up with a new proposal acceptable to Pyongyang, including US sanctions relief and security guarantees for its regime through a peace treaty.
South Korea’s top nuclear envoy Lee Do-hoon, who is currently in Washington for talks, said on Thursday the US and North Korea could resume denuclearisation negotiations soon.
How John Bolton’s exit could soften US stance on North Korea
Trump berated Bolton this week for advocating the “Libyan model” in talks with the North and incurring Pyongyang’s wrath, suggesting a “new method” could help break the impasse in denuclearisation negotiations.
Libya agreed to surrender its weapons of mass destruction programme in late 2003, after which its leader Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power and killed by Nato-backed rebel forces in 2011.
Their ninth bilateral summit will focus on how to move the Korea peace process forward.