Kim stays silent on Trump while tightening North Korea’s home front

As U.S. President Donald Trump steps up overtures to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang is staying publicly silent regarding Washington and turning its attention inward — a move analysts say could be aimed at shoring up its position before any renewed negotiations with the United States.

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party convened the fourth enlarged meeting on Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Wednesday. 

The enlarged political bureau meetings bring together key party, government and military officials to discuss policies and pending issues between party congresses or plenary meetings of the Central Committee.

The meeting reviewed progress on this year’s major policy tasks adopted at the Ninth Party Congress in February, as well as the performance of key economic sectors, the newspaper reported.

“Pointing out a series of deviations revealed in the course of implementing the decisions of the Party Congress, Comrade Kim Jong-un said that they are the consequences of the immature operation and leadership of the economic guidance organs failing to keep abreast of our greater ideals and progress and such shortcomings can be overcome and eliminated by the efforts redoubled with a new determination and struggle will,” the KCNA said.

Kim noted that “the goals of transformations set forth by the Ninth Party Central Committee are not merely the numbers in practical plans but important political tasks for preserving the dignity of the country and proving the superiority of the social system.”

The North Korean leader also stressed “the need for the officials responsible for the implementation of the Party decisions to successfully conclude this year's struggle without fail and thus pave a broad avenue to attaining the new long-term goals,” according to KCNA.

Despite Trump’s repeatedly expressing his willingness to engage in talks with Kim in recent days, the meeting made no mention of the United States. Kim has shown no public response, instead presenting an image of focusing on economic and livelihood goals set at the Ninth Party Congress.

There is also speculation that North Korea may have deliberately withheld any discussion of diplomacy with the United States, even if such discussions occurred during the meeting.

Experts view the meeting as an effort to shore up domestic affairs before potentially embarking on full-fledged diplomacy with Washington. Having experienced the collapse of the 2019 North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, Kim may prefer to watch how the situation develops and strengthen conditions at home for negotiations rather than respond hastily to Trump’s overtures.

“There was no direct mention of North Korea-U.S. talks, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the meeting was also intended to tighten internal discipline with future diplomatic responses in mind,” Yang Moo-jin, a distinguished professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said.

“From Kim’s perspective, it would also be difficult to simply ignore Trump’s repeated overtures, but he may be trying to buy time by signaling that he does not yet have sufficient capacity to engage in a diplomatic push with the United States,” said Oh Gyeong-seob, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification. “Given that North Korea has already laid out its conditions for talks with the United States through statements from Kim Yo-jong, Kim appears to be using deliberate silence as a tactic to raise his bargaining leverage.”

BY CHUNG YEONG-GYO [[email protected]]