This archive report was first published on 11 January 2020.
On January 8, 2020, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, turned 36, and US President Donald Trump sent him a personal letter to mark the occasion. However, the gesture was met with skepticism by Pyongyang, which has been critical of the slow pace of denuclearization talks.
Since their first summit meeting in June 2018, Trump has repeatedly emphasized his 'good relationship' with Kim, calling him 'smart' and even stating that they 'fell in love.' The two leaders have exchanged personal letters and dispatched special envoys to each other's capitals, but talks on how to denuclearize North Korea remain deadlocked.
On Saturday, Kim Kye-gwan, a senior aide to Kim Jong-un, confirmed that Trump had sent a personal letter to Kim for his birthday. He acknowledged that the 'personal relations' between Kim and Trump were 'not bad,' but said Kim 'would not discuss the state affairs on the basis of such personal feelings.'
North Korea has hardened its position toward Washington, calling the past one and a half years of on-and-off negotiations a 'lost time.' The denuclearization talks collapsed when Kim and Trump met in Vietnam in February 2019, and Trump rejected Kim's offer to dismantle one of North Korea's nuclear fuel-production facilities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
Recently, Kim Jong-un said he no longer expected the United States to ease sanctions and vowed to expand his country's nuclear force, warning that North Korea no longer felt bound by a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests.
