At first glance, Kim Yo-jong’s latest message to Washington looked like a rebuff to US President Donald Trump’s insistence that he would meet her brother Kim Jong-un later this year.
But analysts said the North Korean leader’s powerful sister stopped well short of shutting down Trump’s outreach, using a carefully worded statement to leave room for renewed summit diplomacy while making clear that Pyongyang intended to set the terms for any return to dialogue.
In her statement, released by North Korean state media late on Wednesday, Kim Yo-jong dismissed Trump’s decision to scale back joint US-South Korea military exercises as meaningless, demanded a complete halt to the drills and warned again against what Pyongyang calls Washington’s “hostile” policy.
Yet the statement also contained openings that appeared calibrated for Trump.
Kim Yo-jong neither confirmed nor denied Trump’s claim that the North Korean leader had responded positively to his latest overture, saying only that it was “perhaps” the one foreign policy matter involving the country’s “supreme leadership” about which she was not informed.
She also emphasised that Pyongyang had repeatedly said Kim Jong-un held “personally good memories and feelings” towards Trump.