Kim Jong-un’s photo-op meeting with Trump ‘has backfired because North Koreans question why THEIR leader was so desperate to meet the US President’
- Kim Jong-un’s eagerness is said to have undermined his image as a strong leader
- There has also been criticism of Pyongyang’s overblown propaganda on the talks
- The two leaders met in the DMZ between North and South in a surprise summit
Kim Jong-un’s impromptu meeting with Donald Trump last week has gone down badly in North Korea where people are unsure why their leader rushed to meet the U.S. President, it has been claimed.
Kim’s eagerness to meet Trump has undermined the picture that Pyongyang paints of a powerful and proactive leader, a source told Korean media.
There has also been criticism of Pyongyang’s overblown propaganda, after the North declared the encounter a ‘historic’ meeting’.
The surprise meeting in the DMZ that divides North and South Korea brought a promise to resume nuclear talks after months of angry exchanges, but critics dismissed it as an act of political theatre.
Historic meeting: Kim Jong-un shakes hands with Donald Trump in the DMZ that divides North and South Korea, during their impromptu summit last weekend
A North Korean source told Radio Free Asia: ‘The authorities propagandise that North Korea is the most powerful country in the world and Kim Jong-un is leading the world with his outstanding ability and courage, so why is he hurrying to meet President Trump in Panmunjom?
‘Officials are saying that Kim Jong-un was perhaps a little too eager to meet the president.’
Saying that many North Koreans were seeking news from beyond official statements, the source added: ‘Residents, especially officials are ridiculing the propaganda of the authorities.’
In a bid to shape the narrative, Pyongyang declared the DMZ meeting, in which Trump became the first sitting President to step into North Korea, an ‘amazing event’.
The leaders agreed to ‘resume and push forward productive dialogues for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula’, Pyongyang said.
Kim himself also hailed the moment, saying of Trump: ‘I believe this is an expression of his willingness to eliminate all the unfortunate past and open a new future.’
He added that he was ‘surprised’ when Mr Trump proposed the meeting on Twitter.
Reading the news: People in Pyongyang look at publicly displayed newspapers reporting on the meeting between Trump and Kim last weekend
Trump in turn said he was ‘proud’ to step over the line into North Korea, saying he had a ‘wonderful meeting’ with Kim.
The first Trump-Kim summit took place in a blaze of publicity in Singapore last year but produced only a vaguely worded pledge about denuclearisation.
A second meeting in Vietnam in February collapsed after the pair failed to reach an agreement over sanctions relief.
The abrupt failure of the February summit prompted months of hostile exchanges between the two governments and fears that the North was restarting its nuclear programme.
North Korea last conducted a major missile test in November 2017 when it flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The weapons demonstrated potential capability to reach deep into the U.S. mainland.
Since then Kim has said the North would not test nuclear devices or ICBMs but diplomacy has stalled in recent months.
Satellite images which emerged from the North’s nuclear site in Yongbyon in April this year also sparked fears that Pyongyang was preparing bomb fuel.
A U.S. think tank said the pictures showed movement at the site which could indicate the reprocessing of radioactive material.