Kim released a statement Friday carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency to reject rumors of another meeting between her brother and President Donald Trump ahead of the November elections in the U.S.
Though Kim dismissed the idea of a new leaders meeting, she used less belligerent rhetoric than senior North Korean officials who have also rejected rumored talks in recent days.
Kim even said she had requested and received permission from her brother to obtain DVDs showing U.S. Independence Day celebrations. “I’m trying to personally obtain DVDs on U.S. Independence Day events from now on, and I’ve also gotten approval from the Chairman for that,” she said in her statement, referring to her older brother.
Any North Korean caught “viewing, reading or listening to content provided by a media outlet based outside the country” risks being sent to concentration camps where abuse is rife and conditions inhumane, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Kim said she did not wish to write a dismissive letter to the U.S., and conveyed to Trump her brother’s wishes of “great successes in his work.” She added, “North Korea has no intention of harming the U.S.,” adding that “Kim Jong Un has made this clear to Trump.”
Still, Kim—who was tipped as a potential successor to her brother during his recent unexplained absence from public life—was clear that Pyongyang has no appetite for more face-to-face meetings with U.S. officials this year.
Trump and his allies touted the beginning of U.S.-North Korean talks on denuclearization and sanctions relief as a historic foreign policy win, though critics noted nothing of substance had been achieved and even the meeting between the two leaders was a propaganda coup for the North.
Talks have since collapsed and the North has returned to a regular drumbeat of weapons tests and aggressive rhetoric. Pyongyang has maintained its moratorium on intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear weapon tests, but last month blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in the border city of Kaesong.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has said he is keen on another leaders meeting before the U.S. election, and former national security adviser John Bolton said this month that Trump might deliver an “October surprise” in the form of another North Korean summit.
The president himself said this week of the North Koreans: “I understand they want to meet, and we would certainly do that.”
Kim echoed remarks made by other North Korean officials in rejecting the idea. “Given the differences in opinion between the two countries, it wouldn’t be beneficial or necessary for the two sides to meet unless there is a decisive change in the U.S. stance toward North Korea,” she said in her statement.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun—who has fronted U.S. engagement with North Korea—visited the South this week for the first time this year, and said that the White House remains open to more talks with Pyongyang.
