North Korea's Kim slams US-South Korea-Japan partnership and vows to boost his nuclear program

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an elevated U.S. security partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to further bolster his nuclear weapons program, state media reported Sunday.

Kim has previously made similar warnings, but his latest statement implies again that the North Korean leader won’t likely embrace President Donald Trump’s overture to meet him and revive diplomacy anytime soon.

In a speech marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on Saturday, Kim said the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership established under a U.S. plot to form a NATO-like regional military bloc is inviting military imbalance on the Korean Peninsula and “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

“Referring to a series of new plans for rapidly bolstering all deterrence including nuclear forces, he clarified once again the unshakable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces,” KCNA said.

Amid stalled diplomacy with the U.S. and South Korea in recent years, Kim has focused on enlarging and modernizing his arsenal of nuclear weapons. In response, the United States and South Korea have expanded their bilateral military exercises and trilateral training involving Japan. North Korea has lashed out at those drills, calling them rehearsals to invade the country.

Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has said he would reach out to Kim again as he boasted of his high-stakes summit with him during his first term.

During a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, Trump said that “We will have relations with North Korea, with Kim Jong Un. I got along with him very well, as you know. I think I stopped the war."

During a Fox News interview broadcast on Jan. 23, Trump called Kim “a smart guy” and “not a religious zealot.” Asked whether he will reach out to Kim again, Trump replied, “I will, yeah.”

Trump met Kim three times in 2018-19 to discuss how to end North Korea’s nuclear program in what was the first-ever summitry between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea. The high-stakes diplomacy eventually collapsed because Trump rejected Kim’s offer to dismantle his main nuclear complex, a partial denuclearization step, in return for broad sanctions relief.

North Korea hasn’t directly responded to Trump's recent overture, as it continues weapons testing activities and hostile rhetoric against the U.S. Many experts say Kim is now preoccupied with his dispatch of troops to Russia to support its war efforts against Ukraine. They say Kim would still eventually consider returning to diplomacy with Trump if he determines he would fail to maintain the current solid cooperation with Russia after the war ends.

In his Saturday speech, Kim reaffirmed that North Korea “will invariably support and encourage the just cause of the Russian army and people to defend their sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.” Kim accused the U.S. of being behind “the war machine which is stirring up the tragic situation of Ukraine.”

In South Korea, some worry that Trump might abandon the international community’s long-running goal of achieving a complete denuclearization of North Korea to produce a diplomatic achievement.

But a joint statement issued by Trump and Ishiba after their summit stated the two leaders reaffirmed “their resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization of the DPRK,” the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The statement said the U.S. and Japan also affirmed the importance of the Japan-U.S.-South Korean trilateral partnership in responding to North Korea.