North Korea will never give up its nuclear ambitions

Earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong proclaimed that North Korea has no intention of abandoning its nuclear weapons. ‘If the US and its vassal forces continue to insist on anachronistic denuclearisation… it will only give unlimited justness and justification to the advance of the DPRK aspiring after the building of the strongest nuclear force for self-defence,’ she said, adding that North Korea’s nuclear status could ‘never be reversed by any physical strength or sly artifice’.

This may have been stating the obvious, but this declaration by Kim Jong Un’s vitriolic sister dashed any optimistic hopes that the arrival of a new administration in Washington could lead to Pyongyang treading one step along the path towards denuclearisation.

North Korea’s rapprochement with Russia – thanks only in part to the Ukraine war – has raised the price of any US-North Korea talks.