North Korea has denied that any direct communication has taken place between leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump, even as Trump says he is seeking to arrange a meeting with the North Korean leader before the end of the year.
Pyongyang’s statement
The denial came from Kim Yo Jong, sister of the North Korean leader and a senior figure in the ruling Workers’ Party, in a statement carried by state media outlet KCNA. She said the personal relationship between the two leaders “remains excellent,” but insisted that Washington’s underlying approach toward Pyongyang has not shifted.
“The relationship between the two leaders remains excellent,” she said. “However, the US’s hostile policies toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea haven’t changed.”
Kim Yo Jong also dismissed Washington’s recent decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, framing it as insufficient to change North Korea’s assessment of US intentions.
Trump’s outreach
The statement follows repeated signals from Trump in recent days that he is working to revive personal diplomacy with Kim. Earlier this week, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Kim had “responded” to his outreach and described the exchange as being at a “very positive” stage, though the White House offered no further detail on what form that response took.
Trump’s renewed push comes alongside a separate move to reduce the scale of joint military drills with South Korea, which he has previously described as “inappropriate and hostile” and costly. He has also pointed to what he characterises as a strong personal rapport with Kim, dating back to their three meetings during his first term — including summits in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019, and a brief encounter at the Demilitarized Zone — none of which produced a lasting agreement on North Korea’s nuclear programme.
Reports in recent days have suggested Trump is considering a meeting with Kim as early as this autumn, potentially during a planned trip to Asia in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, though officials say no formal preparations for such talks have yet begun.
Why the gap matters
The mismatch between Trump’s upbeat characterisation of contact with Kim and North Korea’s flat denial of any direct communication underscores the uncertainty still surrounding US-North Korea relations. Pyongyang has consistently maintained that it will not return to the negotiating table on the basis of denuclearisation, a demand it regards as a non-starter given its official status, declared in 2022, as a nuclear-armed state. North Korea’s weapons programme and battlefield experience — gained partly through military cooperation with Russia — have also expanded significantly in the years since the last Trump-Kim summit collapsed.
Whether the latest overtures translate into an actual meeting this year remains unclear, with Pyongyang’s public position continuing to stress that any dialogue would have to proceed on its own terms.
Based on reporting by Vincent Lee and Tyler Kendall, Bloomberg.
