Kim Jong-un Is in No Rush To Talk

Chairman Kim Jong-un is determined to strengthen North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Years of sanctions, international pressure and on-and-off negotiations have not dented North Korea’s confidence in its ability to set the terms and conditions of engagement with the United States and South Korea.

Kim has also continued to shun South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. He dismissed past South Korean engagement bids as efforts to subvert the North Korean regime through the spread of South Korean culture.

So the prospect of resuming dialogue seems distant.

Normally, North Korea adopts a conciliatory stance whenever South Korea has a liberal president. Pyongyang’s objective is to neutralise any US or South Korean pretexts to attack its nuclear program. That pattern no longer holds. Kim has stuck to his declaration of the South as an enemy state and is not in a rush to strike a deal with Washington. He sees time is now on North Korea’s side.

Past instances of North Korea reconciling with South Korea and the United States occurred when Pyongyang was isolated and its nuclear weapons were inadequate to deter a US-South Korea first strike.

North Korea also signed the 1994 Agreed Framework with the Bill Clinton administration after Washington deliberated striking North Korea’s fledgling nuclear facility.

Pyongyang participated in the Six-Party Talks between 2003 and 2009 as a means to alleviate the US threat after the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq.

Pyongyang signed the 2012 Leap Day Deal with the Barack Obama administration after the United States overthrew its close friend Libyan Muammar Gaddafi’s regime the year prior.

Donald Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” in 2017 nudged Kim to participate in bilateral summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Trump to obtain a security guarantee for North Korea.

North Korea’s weaknesses meant it had to exploit all windows of opportunity to strike a nuclear deal with Washington and Seoul to lessen the repercussions of the return of hostile figures in either the White House or the Blue House. The mere gesture of talking or sticking to a flimsy deal is enough to dissuade Washington and Seoul from launching a first strike and they buy North Korea time to develop a nuclear deterrent.

North Korea still fears a US-South Korea attack. But its alliance with Russia offers some relief. Pyongyang has committed to its end of the treaty by sending soldiers to defend Russia from Ukrainian counteroffensives. Russia is expected in turn to defend North Korea. Pyongyang’s nuclear program is no obstacle to Moscow’s guarantee, unlike with China, as Beijing doesn’t support North Korea’s nuclear program even while affirming its security guarantee to Pyongyang.

Being able to develop its nuclear program without fear explains why North Korea has not rushed to respond to Lee’s outreach and even asked Trump to recognise it as a nuclear state. Neither Trump’s attacks against North Korea’s close friend Iran nor the use of force to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro are unlikely to change North Korea’s conditions for talks with Washington. Pyongyang doesn’t seek confrontation with Trump, but it sees little need to actively participate in talks with the United States in search of a security guarantee.

With Russia’s backing and its nuclear weapons growing in terms of quantity and quality, it matters little to North Korea who is in charge at the White House or the Blue House so long as its ties with Russia remain robust. Future US and South Korean presidents, conservative and liberal alike, will have to live with the fact that attacking North Korea is not feasible and an arms control deal is the most cost-effective solution to halt its nuclear program. North Korea has not shunned diplomacy for good. It is just biding time.

Khang Vu is a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at Boston College. He was a 2023-24 Hans J. Morgenthau pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Khang received his Ph.D. from Boston College in 2024 and his master’s degree from Dartmouth College in 2019.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.