Washington | US President Joe Biden’s teams have tried to make contact with North Korea in recent weeks. In vain.
“We have tried to contact the North Korean government through various channels since mid-February, particularly in New York,” a senior US official said on Monday on condition of anonymity.
“To date, we have not received any response from Pyongyang,” he added.
According to this official, the objective of this contact is to reduce “the risk of escalation” on the Korean peninsula.
After exchanging insults and threats of nuclear war, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump had made a spectacular rapprochement, marked by meetings as historic as they were symbolic.
But no progress has been made on the thorny issue of Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic programs, and negotiations have stalled since the resounding failure of the second summit between the two men at the end of February 2019 in Hanoi.
One of the reasons for this stalemate has been the lack of consensus on what concessions North Korea should make in exchange for lifting international sanctions against it.
An official in the Biden administration pointed out that there had been no “active dialogue” between Washington and Pyongyang for “more than a year”.
The new president has launched a comprehensive review of US policy vis-à-vis Pyongyang to examine all possible options in the face of the “growing threat” that North Korea poses “to its neighbors and to the international community” , he clarified.
“Throughout this process, we will continue to consult with our Japanese and South Korean allies to solicit their ideas and explore new approaches,” he added.
In early January, Kim called the United States “North Korea’s” greatest enemy, adding that Washington’s policy towards Pyongyang would “never” change “whoever is in power” in the United States.
Kim Jong-un’s sister warns Washington not to smear ‘gunpowder’
The very influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attacked South Korea and the United States on Tuesday, the South Korean agency Yonhap reported, while the new American Secretaries of Defense and to Foreign Affairs began a visit to Tokyo and Seoul.
The United States and South Korea embarked on joint military maneuvers last week, and North Korean state media reported a statement by Kim Yo-jong offering “advice to the new US administration trying to spread a smell of powder on our country ”.
“If you want to rest easy for the next four years [durée d’un mandat présidentiel américain, NDLR], you would do well not to do anything that will make you lose sleep, ”says Mr.me Kim, according to Rodong Sinmun.
This is the first explicit reference, without however naming it, to the new American president on behalf of this country equipped with the nuclear weapon, more than four months after the election of Joe Biden to the succession of Donald Trump. .
Donald Trump’s atypical foreign policy had given rise to exchanges of insults and threats of war with Kim Jong Un, followed by an extraordinary diplomatic honeymoon marked by summits between the two leaders.
These relations did not ultimately lead to progress towards a denuclearization of North Korea, subject to multiple international sanctions because of its nuclear program.
The negotiation process was conducted through South Korean President Moon Jae-in, but relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have deteriorated sharply since the failure of the Kim-Trump summit in Hanoi in February 2019.
Some 28,500 US military personnel are stationed in South Korea to protect it from a possible attack and Seoul and Washington, united by a military alliance, began computer-simulated military exercises last week.
North Korea condemns such training, which it calls preparations for invasion. “The South Korean government has once again chosen ‘the War March’, ‘the Crisis March’,” Kim Yo Jong said in his statement.