North Korea vows to build up military, on anniversary of historic Trump, Kim summit

North Korea on Friday again vowed to build up its military in response to U.S. sanctions and perceived threats and said that it has no reason to foster a relationship between leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump.

On the two-year anniversary of Kim and Trump’s first summit, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said his country would never again grant Trump high-profile meetings and concessions that he could tout as foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return.

“The question is whether there will be a need to keep holding hands shaken in Singapore, as we see that there is nothing of factual improvement to be made,” Ri said in a statement carried by state media, according to the Associated Press. “Never again will we provide the U.S. chief executive with another package to be used for (political) achievements without receiving any returns. Nothing is more hypocritical than an empty promise.”

The leaders have met three times. 

In their first, 2018 summit in Singapore, Kim and Trump agreed to improve bilateral relations and issued a general, non-binding statement on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

At Kim’s second summit with Trump in Vietnam in February 2019, negotiations faltered after the U.S. rejected North Korea’s demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of the North’s nuclear capabilities 

Trump and Kim met for a third time last June at the inter-Korean border, but a subsequent l meeting faltered over what the North Koreans described as the Americans’ “old stance and attitude,” the wire service also reports. 

Kim, who unilaterally suspended nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests during talks with Washington and Seoul, entered the new year vowing to bolster his nuclear deterrent. The North in recent months conducted short-range missile tests while also dialing up pressure on South Korea.