North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is calling on the US to stop “its current way of calculation” if it is interested in continuing diplomatic talks, according to a report from the country’s state news agency KCNA.
“First of all, it is necessary for the United States to stop the current way of calculation and approach us with a new way of calculation,” Kim said in Pyongyang at the first meeting of the 14th session of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, KCNA reports.
“What is obvious is that if the United States sticks to the current political way of calculation, the prospects for problem solving will be dark and very dangerous.”
In February, President Donald Trump cut short his Hanoi, Vietnam, summit with Kim with no joint agreement or statement after Kim insisted all US sanctions be lifted from his country. Since the tense summit, North Korea has threatened to suspend denuclearization talks with the United States.
Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, left open the door to a third summit with Kim but said it’s up to the North Korean dictator. The US President said he wants sanctions on North Korea to remain in place, though he doesn’t want to increase them.
In his speech Friday, Kim said, “The United States is talking a lot about holding a third US-NK summit meeting, but we are neither pleased nor willing to see a summit like the Hanoi summit reenacted.”
He added, “But as President Trump continues to mention, the personal relations between me and President Trump are not as hostile as the relations between the two countries, and we still have a good relationship, and if we want, we can send and receive letters asking for each other’s regards any time.”
The North Korean leader added that if the US were to ask for a third summit, it would be “with the condition that the US has the right attitude and finds a methodology that can be shared with us, we would be willing to try one more time.”
Kim said he will “be patient” and wait until the end of this year for the US to decide if it wants another summit.
“But it will be hard to get a good opportunity like the last time again,” he said.
Responding to the comments from the North Korean leader, South Korea’s presidential office said in a message to journalists in Seoul on Saturday, “Our government will do what we can in order to maintain the current momentum for dialogue and help negotiations between the US and North Korea resume at an early date.”
CNN’s Jamie Ehrlich contributed to this report.
