Kim Jong-un Reestablishes Hotline with South Korea After Bashing Biden Administration

As we have been saying here on the ROK Drop, Kim Jong-un is eager to pressure the Moon administration to get a deal cut with Biden administration before the ROK presidential elections this Spring. If a conservative takes power in South Korea the Kim regime knows they have little prospects of getting a deal that gives them what they want with little to nothing in return. The time to get a deal in their favor is now, so expect continued missile tests to keep North Korea in the headlines and the pressure on the Biden administration.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said Wednesday he will restore inter-Korean hotlines early next month, while calling Washington’s outreach to Pyongyang for dialogue “a petty trick.”  
   
“The U.S. is touting ‘diplomatic engagement’ and ‘dialogue without preconditions’ but it is no more than a petty trick for deceiving the international community and hiding its hostile acts and an extension of the hostile policy pursued by the successive U.S. administrations,” Kim said in a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly on Wednesday, according to an English-language statement carried by the North’s official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).    
   
It was the first time that Kim directly responded to the Joe Biden administration’s repeated calls for dialogue “without any preconditions.”  
   
Kim spoke in a more conciliatory tone about the South, in what appeared to be an attempt to pressure Seoul to get the Joe Biden administration to ease crippling sanctions, suspend joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, or allow it to keep its existing arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles – the list of items that the regime has repeatedly demanded from Seoul and Washington.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

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