Kim Jong Un has reaffirmed his commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and the suspension of all future long-range missile tests and said he had faith to continue working with US president Donald Trump, South Korean officials said.
Mr Kim also reportedly expressed frustration with outside scepticism about his nuclear disarmament intentions and demanded that his “goodwill measures” be met in kind.
The trove of Kim comments were filtered through his propaganda specialists in Pyongyang and the South Korean government, which is keen on keeping engagement alive, and they comes amid a growing stand-off with the United States on how to proceed with diplomacy meant to settle a nuclear dispute that had many fearing war last year.
Only hours earlier, a South Korean delegation returned from talks with Mr Kim where they set up a summit on September 18-20 in Pyongyang between Mr Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, their third meeting since April.
Each statement reportedly made by Mr Kim will be parsed for clues about the future of the nuclear diplomacy.
The impasse between North Korea and the United States, with neither side seemingly willing to make any substantive move, has generated widespread scepticism over Mr Trump’s claims that Mr Kim will really dismantle his nuclear weapons programme.
“Chairman Kim Jong Un has made it clear several times that he is firmly committed to denuclearise, and he expressed frustration over scepticism in the international community over his commitment,” Chung Eui-yong, Mr Moon’s national security adviser and the head of the South Korean delegation to Pyongyang, told reporters on Seoul on Thursday.
“He said he’s pre-emptively taken steps necessary for denuclearisation and wants to see these goodwill measures being met with goodwill measures.”
Mr Chung reported Mr Kim as saying that work to dismantle the only engine-test site in the country “means a complete suspension of future long-range ballistic missile tests”.
The summit later this month between Mr Kim and Mr Moon, the driving force behind the current diplomacy, will be a crucial indicator of whether larger nuclear negotiations with the United States will proceed.
Mr Moon is seen as eager to keep the diplomacy alive in part so that he can advance his ambitious engagement plans with the North, which would need US backing to succeed.
The inter-Korean summit comes on the eve of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York at the end of September, but Seoul said on Thursday that it was unlikely Mr Kim would attend.
Seoul has indicated an interest in Mr Kim and Mr Trump meeting in New York, and Mr Trump, who is facing growing domestic turmoil, has hinted that another summit could happen.
While pushing ahead with summits and inter-Korean engagement, Seoul is trying to persuade Washington and Pyongyang to proceed with peace and denuclearisation processes at the same time so they can overcome a growing dispute over the sequencing of the diplomacy.
Seoul and Pyongyang both want a declaration to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.
Such steps may include providing an account of the components of its nuclear programme, allowing outside inspections and giving up a certain number of its nuclear weapons during the early stages of the negotiations.
The Korean War ended with an armistice, leaving the peninsula technically still at war.
Mr Moon has made an end-of-war declaration an important premise of his peace agenda with North Korea.
While an end-of-war declaration would not imply a legally binding peace treaty, experts say it could create political momentum that would make it easier for North Korea to steer the discussions toward a peace regime, diplomatic recognition, economic benefits and security concessions.
The two past inter-Korean summits in April and May removed war fears and initiated a global diplomatic push that culminated with the meeting between Mr Kim and Mr Trump in June.
But Mr Moon faces tougher challenges heading into his third meeting with Mr Kim, with the stalemate in nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington raising fundamental questions about Mr Kim’s supposed willingness to abandon his nuclear weapons.
