August 21, 2026 | 07:51 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - North Korea responded on Thursday to claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that he will be holding talks with leader Kim Jong Un later in the year with a broadside of ballistic missiles.
The South Korean military said Pyongyang launched 10 short-range missiles that landed in the sea off North Korea's east coast.
This came a day after Kim's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said Pyongyang was "completely unaware of" plans for discussions.
Trump's announcement on Wednesday that he is in contact with Kim and that the two leaders would meet later in the year appears to have caught Pyongyang off guard. It comes after the U.S. president said the military would scale back annual military drills with South Korea.
The statement by Kim Yo Jong, director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and one of her brother's closest advisers, dismissed Trump's decision to dramatically scale back the 10-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises as "unworthy of comment and [we] have no interest in it at all."
"After Trump's overtures, Kim Yo Jong effectively said downscaling exercises is not enough, and North Korea launched about a dozen missiles in its third firing in two weeks," Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told DW.
In a statement carried by the state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim Yo Jong mocked South Korea as a "puppet" and indicated that only canceling the drills in their entirety would be seen as a "goodwill measure."
North Korea's position of power
Choo Jae-woo, a professor of foreign policy at South Korea's Kyung Hee University, told DW that unlike in Trump's first term, Pyongyang right now is in a position of power and will likely seek more guarantees before coming to the negotiating table.
"North Korea is not interested in dialogue because Kim was humiliated in 2019 when Trump walked out of their talks in Hanoi," said Choo said.
Those talks ended in acrimony over the U.S. insistence that North would have to scrap its nuclear program.
Pyongyang has since forged a close security and economic alliance with Russia, granting it access to military technology, energy and consumer goods previously beyond its grasp under international sanctions.
"They are in the safe hands of Russia and China and, in the years since Hanoi, Kim has made it his regime's official position that North Korea will never engage in dialogue as long as giving up its nuclear weapons is part of the discussion,” Choo added.
Will Trump-Kim talks happen anytime soon?
Easley said that Pyongyang is unlikely to agree to talks with the U.S., at least in the immediate future.
"North Korea is practically a combatant in a European war, sending ammunition, missiles and soldiers to Russia as it continues to attack Ukraine," he said.
"Kim is benefiting financially from this illegal trade, incorporating new technologies and battlefield experience into his military and industrial base, and receiving Moscow's blessing for de facto nuclear status."
That, in turn, gives Kim leverage to demand greater support from Beijing. Pyongyang is also aware that time is not on Trump's side.
Trump has not yet publicly confirmed a date and venue for talks with Kim, and no agenda has been presented, casting doubt on whether a meeting will take place. The upcoming U.S. midterm elections on November 3 add more political urgency to Trump's timeline.
On the other hand, the North Korean leader may sense that this may be his best opportunity to strike some sort of deal with the U.S. while Trump is still in office.
In her statement earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong said the relationship between Trump and her brother is "still excellent."
Seoul welcomes progress
And while the South Korean government has broadly welcomed Trump's claim that he will meet with Kim later in the year and reiterated that it no longer considers denuclearization of the North a prerequisite for talks, there are concerns among ordinary people in the South, Choo said.
"The fear is that Trump will simply ignore South Korea's security needs and deal directly with North Korea because he is so desperate to get an agreement signed," he said.
"There needs to be close coordination between Seoul and Washington on what is being discussed and agreed because any agreements that are made will affect us far more than the US," he said.
Media reports suggest that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum on November 18 and 19 in the Chinese city of Shenzhen could provide a suitable venue for Trump and Kim to meet in person.
Read: China Rejects Trump's Economic Pressure Campaign Against Iran
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