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"Anachronistic Dream": Kim Jong Un's Sister To US On Denuclearisation Call

North Korea has been focusing on enlarging its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea says its nuclear programme is ‘irreversible’ ahead of Chinese leader’s visit

North Korea said on Sunday that its nuclear weapons programme was “irreversible”, challenging the US push for denuclearisation a day before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit. After Donald Trump’s meeting with Xi last month, the United States said the two leaders shared the goal of denuclearising the Korean peninsula, although the Chinese statement did not mention the issue. But Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, described the comments as “false information”, and...

Will Xi’s North Korea visit show Kim that China remains Pyongyang’s most vital ally?

President Xi Jinping is heading to North Korea on Monday with the aim of proving that China remains the best prospect for reviving his host country’s economy. The visit, Xi’s first in seven years, will focus on reinforcing ties with Pyongyang at a time when the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula appears increasingly out of reach, according to analysts. The carefully timed sequence of diplomatic meetings also reflects Beijing’s growing confidence on the world stage and its ability to engage...

North Korea nuclear programme 'absolutely non-negotiable': Kim Jong Un's sister

North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme is “absolutely non-negotiable”, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said in a statement carried by state media on Sunday, ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Pyongyang has long insisted on its right to a nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes although they are forbidden under the terms of UN Security Council sanctions. It enshrined its nuclear status in its constitution in 2023. “Our status as a nuclear power is absolutely non-negotiable,” Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong said in a statement published by North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun, adding that the North “will not tolerate any threats”. A key player in the country’s communications and foreign policy, Kim Yo Jong’s statement came on the eve of Xi’s visit to North Korea, scheduled to take place from Monday to Tuesday, according to state media. Beijing is a vital source of political and economic support to North Korea, which is one of the most diplomatically isolated countries in the world and under heavy international sanctions. Xi’s upcoming visit to Pyongyang would be his first in seven years, and comes after he hosted back-to-back summits with US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin last month. Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since Kim Jong Un’s 2019 summit with Trump collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief. North Korea’s leader has since been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Moscow after sending thousands of troops to fight alongside Russian forces. He inspected a major munitions factory at the weekend and called for it to boost production capacity, according to a separate report by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday. This was “in order to supply enough quantity of missiles”, KCNA quoted him as saying. False information Kim Yo Jong, in her statement, went on to slam Washington over its comments that the goal of North Korea’s denuclearisation had been reaffirmed during last month’s summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing. The White House posted a fact sheet following the summit stating that “President Trump and President Xi confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea”, which Kim Yo Jong said was false. “Some officials in the United States still have yet to awaken from their escapist and anachronistic dream,” she said. “This is nothing more than Washington’s habitual dissemination of false information.” She rejected Washington’s attempts to deny or challenge the North’s status as a nuclear power, saying it “carries no legal force”. “The policy of continuously strengthening the country’s self-defensive nuclear deterrent, as set out by the nation’s leader, is an irreversible course that must be implemented without fail,” she added. The statement underscores Pyongyang’s “sensitivity” to any suggestion of a US-China agreement on North Korean denuclearisation, Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP. “Kim’s core message was a categorical rejection of reports of US-China discussions on North Korean denuclearisation as ‘false information’”, he said. It is possible that Pyongyang had “confirmed with Beijing” during the coordination process for the summit that such discussion had not taken place, Hong added.

‘Anachronistic dream’: Kim Jong Un’s sister rejects US denuclearisation push ahead of Xi visit

North Korea's Kim calls for 'exponential' nuclear expansion after inspecting new plant

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an “exponential” expansion of the country’s atomic arsenal during a visit to a newly operational nuclear material production factory, state media agency KCNA said on Thursday. Kim said production capacity for weapons-grade nuclear material had reached more than double its previous level over the past five years and instructed officials to further increase output to meet long-term strategic goals. During the visit, he was briefed on new production processes incorporating more advanced technology and reviewed current output targets and future plans, KCNA reported. Photographs published by state media showed Kim walking between rows of cylinder-shaped equipment inside the facility, which some analysts said could indicate the location is at the country’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon. Kim said the expansion was necessary given what he called worsening security threats and long-term confrontation with “the most ferocious enemies” and reaffirmed the country’s policy of increasing its nuclear deterrence. KCNA said a key consultative meeting on bolstering nuclear forces was held the same day, at which Kim outlined guidelines for accelerating both the qualitative and quantitative expansion of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The country has set out the sequence and safeguards for executing an “ambitious future plan designed to beef up our states nuclear forces at an exponential rate,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying. This is a “historic event that has set up an epochal milestone in rapidly upgrading our nuclear capabilities,” he added. Potential Xi visit to Pyongyang The nuclear facility North Korea unveiled on Thursday was a uranium-enrichment site, an official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said at a briefing in Seoul. Analysts said Kim’s visit appeared aimed at reinforcing North Korea’s negotiating position ahead of potential diplomatic engagement while justifying an acceleration of its nuclear build-up. Chad OCarroll, founder of North Korea-focused website NK News, said the site visit could be linked to a potential trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pyongyang, noting that before travelling to Beijing in September 2025, Kim inspected plans for a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the “Hwasong-20”. “The logic would be to demonstrate absolutely that denuclearisation is not possible, right on the eve of contact with the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” OCarroll said. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at South Koreas Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, also linked Kim’s latest visit to Seoul’s pursuit of a nuclear-powered submarine and its talks with Washington over uranium enrichment rights, which he said Pyongyang may be using to justify accelerating its weapons programme. “Even if South Korea does not proceed, the North will follow its own path, but such developments provide a convenient pretext to push its nuclear build-up faster and on a larger scale,” Lim said. North Korea is estimated to possess around 50 nuclear warheads, according to international assessments, though it has never disclosed the size of its arsenal.

"Never Ever": North Korea Rejects Denuclearisation Push By Quad Nations

North Korea's foreign ministry also accused the Quad of interfering in Pyongyang's sovereign affairs

North Korea fired projectiles, including short-range ballistic missile, Seoul says

North Korea fired several projectiles, including at least one short-range ballistic missile, toward waters off the country’s west coast on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said. They were launched at around 1 pm (0400 GMT) from near Chongju in North Korea’s North Pyongan Province, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. The missile flew about 80 kilometres, the JCS said. It is North Korea’s first known missile launch since April 19, when the country test-fired several short-range ballistic missiles, which it said were equipped with cluster bombs. In early April, Pyongyang also said it tested a new cluster-bomb warhead on a ballistic missile and an electromagnetic weapon, in a move that analysts said was part of efforts to showcase the North’s capacity to fight a modern war. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in March that his country’s status as a nuclear-armed state was irreversible and that expanding a “self-defensive nuclear deterrent” was essential to national security. Despite UN sanctions on its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs since 2006, North Korea has accelerated efforts in recent years to build up its arsenal under Kim, drawing condemnation from South Korea, Japan and the US. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson urged North Korea to respond to Seoul’s peace overtures and efforts to reduce tensions in a press briefing on Tuesday. Seoul would maintain its goal of the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, while pursuing a phased and pragmatic approach to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue in close coordination with the international community, the spokesperson said.

'A long-term strategic failure': Three months in, is Trump losing the war on Iran?

Three months after attacking Iran, US President Donald Trump faces a bigger question: Is he losing the war? With Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, its resistance to nuclear concessions and its government largely intact, doubts are growing that Trump can translate the US military’s tactical successes into an outcome he can frame convincingly as a geopolitical win. His repeated claims of complete victory ring hollow, some analysts say, as the two sides teeter between uncertain diplomacy and his on-again-off-again threats to resume strikes, which would be sure to draw Iranian retaliation across the region. Trump is now at risk of seeing the US and its Gulf Arab allies emerge from the conflict worse off, while Iran, though battered militarily and economically, could end up with greater leverage, having shown it can throttle one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies. The crisis is not yet over, and some experts leave open the possibility Trump might still find a face-saving way out if negotiations break in his favour. But others predict a grim post-war outlook for Trump. “We’re three months in, and it’s looking like a war that was designed to be a short-term romp for Trump is turning into a long-term strategic failure,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations. For Trump, that matters, especially given his famous sensitivity to being perceived as a loser, an insult he has often lobbed at opponents. In the Iran crisis, he finds himself commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest military pitted against a second-tier power seemingly convinced it has the upper hand. And this predicament could make Trump, who has yet to define a clear endgame, more likely to resist any compromise that looks like a retreat from his maximalist positions or a repetition of the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that he scrapped in his first term, analysts say. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the US has “met or surpassed all of our military objectives in ‘Operation Epic Fury’”. “President Trump holds all the cards and wisely keeps all options on the table,” she added. Pressure and frustration Trump campaigned for a second term promising no unnecessary military interventions but has brought the US into an entanglement that could do lasting damage to his foreign policy record and credibility abroad. The continuing standoff comes as he faces domestic pressure over high US gasoline prices and low approval ratings after he embarked on the unpopular war ahead of November’s midterm elections. His Republican Party is struggling to maintain control of Congress. As a result, more than six weeks into a ceasefire, some analysts believe Trump faces a stark choice: to accept a potentially flawed deal as an off-ramp or escalate militarily and risk an even longer crisis. Among his options if diplomacy collapses, they say, would be to launch a round of sharp but limited strikes, frame it as a final victory and move on. Another possibility, analysts say, is that Trump could attempt to shift focus to Cuba, as he has suggested, in hopes of changing the subject and trying to score a potentially easier win. If so, he might end up misjudging the challenges posed by Havana, much as some Trump aides privately acknowledge that he mistakenly thought the Iran operation would resemble the January 3 raid that captured Venezuela’s president and led to his replacement. Even so, Trump is not without his defenders. Alexander Gray, a former senior adviser in Trump’s first term and now chief executive officer of the American Global Strategies consultancy, rejected the notion that the president’s Iran campaign was on the ropes. He said that the heavy blow to Iranian military capabilities was in itself a “strategic success,” that the war had drawn Gulf states closer to the US and away from China, and that the fate of Irans nuclear program was still to be determined. There are signs, however, of Trump’s frustration with his inability to control the narrative. He has torn into his critics and accused the news media of treason. The conflict has lasted twice the maximum six-week time-frame that Trump laid out when he joined with Israel in starting the war on February 28. Since then, though his MAGA political base has stood by him on the war, cracks have appeared in his once almost unanimous backing from Republican lawmakers. At the outset, waves of airstrikes quickly degraded Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile, sank much of its navy and killed many top leaders. But Tehran responded by blocking the strait, which sent energy prices soaring, and attacking Israel and Gulf neighbours. Trump then ordered a blockade of Iran’s ports but that has also failed to bend Tehran to his will. Iran’s leaders have matched Trump’s triumphalist claims with their own propaganda depicting his campaign as a “crushing defeat”, though it is clear that Iranian officials have overstated their own military prowess. Shifting goals still unachieved Trump had said his objectives in going to war were to close off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, end its ability to threaten the region and US interests, and make it easier for Iranians to overthrow their rulers. There is no sign that his often-shifting goals have been achieved, and many analysts say it is unlikely that they will be. Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East, said that while Iran has taken devastating hits, its rulers consider it a success simply to have survived the US assault and learned how much control they can exert over Gulf shipping. “What they discovered is they can exercise that leverage and with few consequences for them,” said Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think tank, adding that Iran appeared confident it could tolerate more economic pain than Trump and outlast him. Trump’s main stated war aims Iran’s denuclearisation also remains unfulfilled, and Tehran has shown little willingness to significantly rein in its programme. A stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to remain buried following US and Israeli airstrikes last June and could be recovered and further processed to bomb grade. Iran says it wants the US to recognise its right to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful purposes. Some analysts have suggested that the war could make Iran more, not less, likely to ramp up efforts to develop a nuclear weapon to shield itself like nuclear-armed North Korea. Another of Trump’s declared goals — forcing Iran to halt support for armed proxy groups — also remains unmet. Adding to Trump’s challenges, he is now dealing with new Iranian leaders considered even more hardline than their predecessors. Post-war, they are widely expected still to have enough remaining missiles and drones to pose a continued danger to their neighbours. He is also facing fallout with further erosion of relations with traditional European allies, which have mostly refused his calls for assistance in a war they were not consulted about. China and Russia, meanwhile, have drawn lessons about the US military’s shortcomings against asymmetric Iranian tactics and how some of its weapons supplies have become depleted, analysts said. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, has argued that the outcome will be even more of a decisive setback to US standing than its humiliating withdrawals from much longer, bloodier conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan because those countries were “far from the main theatres of global competition”. “There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done,” he wrote in a recent commentary entitled Checkmate in Iran on the Atlantic magazine’s website.