Shafaq News – Pyongyang

North Korea is ready to talk with the United States if Washington abandons its demand for denuclearization, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un affirmed on Sunday.

Kim and US President Donald Trump met three times between 2018 and 2019. Their first summit in Singapore yielded a preliminary denuclearization agreement, but talks in Hanoi collapsed the following year over sanctions. A third meeting at the inter-Korean border in Panmunjom produced no breakthrough.

North Korea has long rejected US calls to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, insisting its status as a nuclear state is “permanently enshrined” in law and irreversible.

Earlier, in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, Pyongyang’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States of staging a “serious political provocation” at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors by labeling its weapons illegal. The mission noted that North Korea has had no ties with the IAEA for more than 30 years, after withdrawing in 1994 over nuclear inspection disputes.

That warning came days after Kim toured weapons research facilities, where he pledged to strengthen both nuclear and conventional forces.