North Korea says President Trump’s letter offers anti-virus cooperation
Top Stories | Apr 8, 2020:
The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump sent a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, seeking to maintain good relations and offering cooperation in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, Kim’s sister said in late March 2020.
The latest correspondence came as Kim observed the firing of tactical guided weapons, drawing criticism from South Korea, as nuclear talks remain deadlocked.
In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim’s sister and senior ruling party official, Kim Yo Jong, praised President Trump for sending the letter at a time when “big difficulties and challenges lie ahead in the way of developing ties” between the countries.
In the letter, she said President Trump explained his plan to “propel the relations between the two countries … and expressed his intent to render cooperation in the anti-epidemic work,” an apparent reference to the global coronavirus outbreak. She said her brother expressed his gratitude for President Trump’s letter.
North Korea has repeatedly said there hasn’t been a single case of the coronavirus on its soil. Some foreign experts question that claim and say an outbreak in the North could cause a humanitarian disaster because of its poor medical infrastructure. In February 2020, the U.S. State Department expressed concerns about North Korea’s vulnerability to a potential coronavirus outbreak and said it was ready to support efforts by aid organizations to contain the spread of the illness in the North. (Pictured: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, delivers a speech during the ground-breaking ceremony of a general hospital in Pyongyang, North Korea, on March 17, 2020. Kim said it’s “crucial” to improve his country’s health care system during the ceremony, state media reported, amid worries about a coronavirus outbreak in the impoverished North.)
A senior Trump administration official said that President Trump sent a letter to Kim that the official said was consistent with the president’s efforts to engage global leaders during the pandemic. The official said President Trump looks forward to continued communications with the North Korean leader.
Kim Yo Jong said the president’s letter is “a good example showing the special and firm personal relations” between the North Korean and U.S. leaders. However, she said it’s not a good idea to “make hasty conclusion or be optimistic about” the prospect for bilateral relations.
“In my personal opinion, I think that the bilateral relations and dialogue for them would be thinkable only when the equilibrium is kept dynamically and morally and justice ensured between the two countries,” she said. “Even at this moment we are working hard to develop and defend ourselves on our own under the cruel environment which the U.S. is keen to ‘provide.’”
Earlier in the year, President Trump sent birthday greetings to Kim Jong Un, who was believed to have turned 36 on January 8. Senior North Korean official Kim Kye Gwan said at the time that the birthday message won’t lead his country to return to talks unless the U.S. accepts its demands.
Kim and President Trump have met three times and exchanged letters and envoys on many occasions since 2018, when they launched talks on the fate of Kim’s advancing nuclear arsenal.
Their diplomacy has largely come to a standstill since the breakdown of their second summit in Vietnam in February 2019, when President Trump rejected Kim’s demands for broad sanctions relief in return for a partial disarmament step.
Kim pressed President Trump to come up with new proposals to salvage the negotiations by the end of 2019. Kim later vowed to bolster his nuclear deterrent and unveil “a new strategic weapon” and warned that he would no longer be bound by a major weapons test moratorium.
In recent weeks, North Korea has fired a slew of artillery and other rockets into the sea in what experts say is an attempt to improve its military capabilities. The weapons were all short range and did not pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland.
KCNA said Kim watched the test firing of tactical guided weapons on March 21 with Kim Yo Jong and other top officials. The Republic of Korea’s (ROK’s) military called the demonstration “very inappropriate” at a time when the world is struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.
The ROK’s military said that it detected two presumed short-range ballistic missiles that flew from a site in western North Korea across the country and landed in the waters off the east coast. The weapons flew 410 kilometers, according to the ROK’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
