UNITED NATIONS — A senior North Korean diplomat reiterated at the U.N. Monday that his country won’t give up its nuclear weapons despite numerous international demands to do so, calling them crucial to keeping a “balance of power” with South Korea. “We will never walk away from this position,” he said. Under the spotlight of the General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong amplified his country’s longstanding complaints about U.S.-led military exercises with South Korea and Japan. Complaining that the U.S. and its allies are mounting a “growing threat of aggression,” he portrayed his own country’s arsenal as the reason “the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula is ensured.” Still, his address was more tempered, especially toward the United States, than many of his country’s prior remarks on the world stage and elsewhere. While Kim lambasted — without naming names — “hegemonic forces” and an “indiscriminate tariff war,” there were no direct references to U.S. President Donald Trump or personal insults, and there was more sternness than over-the-top bellicosity. Kim vowed that “we will never give up nuclear,” noting that North Korea’s nuclear program is enshrined in its constitution. He asserted that security on the Korean Peninsula “is faced with serious challenges more than ever,” saying that the U.S.-Japanese-South Korean exercises “are breaking all the previous records in terms of scale, nature, frequency and scope.” The North routinely characterizes such war games as preludes to an attack. South Korea says military exercises necessary but wants `peaceful coexistence’ South Korea, for its part, has said the recent trilateral military exercises were necessary to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats. Numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have demanded that the North stop building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. But South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told the high-level meeting last week that his new government “will begin a new journey toward peaceful coexistence and shared growth on the Korean Peninsula.” He said, “The first step will be to restore broken inter-Korean trust and shift to a stance of mutual respect.” North Korea’s Kim did not respond to this overture in his speech. Kim’s appearance at the United Nations marked the first time since 2018 that North Korea sent a senior diplomat to the General Assembly gathering. The U.N., he said, “should not feel relieved, nor congratulate ourselves, on the non-occurrence of the World War III for the past 80 years. Instead, we should pay due attention to the fact that the the inducible threat has persisted and is now becoming more serious, and take measures accordingly.” The diplomat’s appearance at the U.N. comes amid signs of renewed interest in a possible meeting between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump and the North Korean leader met three times in 2018-2019 as Pyongyang was building a nuclear weapons stockpile, which Kim Jong Un views as key to its the country’s security and his continued authority in the northeast Asian nation. The talks collapsed over U.S.-led sanctions against the North, and its leader has since shunned any diplomacy with the U.S. and South Korea. Since Trump returned to power in January, he has repeatedly expressed hope of restarting talks with Kim. Last Monday, the North Korean leader said he still has “good memories” of Trump but urged the United States to drop its demand that the North surrender its nuclear arms as a precondition for resuming diplomacy. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said in an Associated Press interview on Friday that President Lee Jae Myung has asked Trump to become “a peacemaker” and use his leadership to get North Korea to talks to reduce military tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Cho said Trump “expressed his willingness to be engaged with North Korea again.” Trump has an Asia visit upcoming Trump is expected to visit South Korea next month to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and some in the region wonder if he could meet Kim Jong Un on that trip. Trump is expected to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during that meeting. North Korea has always had close ties to neighboring China but in recent years has focused on expanding cooperation with Russia, another neighbor, by supplying combat troops and ammunitions to support its war against Ukraine. The leaders of North Korea and China recently held their first summit in more than six years and pledged mutual support and enhanced cooperation. That meeting followed a first-ever joint appearance by the DPRK’s Kim, China’s President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a massive Beijing military parade marking the end of the World War II. At a follow-up meeting in Beijing on Sunday, the foreign ministers of North Korea and China agreed to deepen their bilateral ties and resist “hegemonism,” an apparent reference to their pushback against the United States. Edith M. Lederer And Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press
