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U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands in front of Freedom House at Panmunjom on June 30, 2019. / Yonhap News

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of North Korea's Workers' Party, warned on July 29 that if the United States "fails to accept the changed reality and remains fixated on the past," meetings between Pyongyang and Washington will remain nothing more than America's "hope."

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim reiterated in a statement titled "Contact between North Korea and the U.S. is merely America's hope" that there would be no negotiations on denuclearization.

Her remarks came after the White House recently cited the 2018–2019 summits between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, stating that "President Trump remains open to dialogue with Kim in pursuit of complete denuclearization of North Korea."

"This is not 2018 or 2019," Kim said, rejecting what she called Washington's "unilateral assessment" of past talks. She insisted that "recognizing the undeniable reality of our irreversible status as a nuclear-armed state, along with the fundamentally altered geopolitical environment, must be the premise for any predictions or calculations about the future."

Kim further declared, "Any attempt to deny our status as a nuclear-armed state, firmly enshrined as the highest law by the unanimous will of our people and backed by our powerful nuclear deterrence, will be thoroughly rejected."

While acknowledging that "the personal relationship between our leader and the current U.S. president is not bad," Kim warned that "if such personal ties are used to pursue denuclearization goals, it would amount to mockery of the other side." Her remarks signaled resistance to any attempt by Trump to revive summit talks under past frameworks.

She suggested instead that Washington "must have at least the minimum sense to recognize that confrontation between two nuclear-armed states is in neither side's interest," urging the U.S. to "explore new avenues for contact based on fresh thinking."

Kim concluded, "If the U.S. cannot accept this changed reality and remains obsessed with failed approaches of the past, North Korea-U.S. meetings will remain only a hope for Washington."