August 5, 2019

Your Excellency,

More than 30 days have passed since we have had a meaningful reunion on June 30 at the North-South Military Demarcation line, a symbol of hostility and confrontation. Truly even as I recall it again I’m struck at what a great moment it was.

I’m delighted to receive each and every single picture you specifically chose from that day, which holds special meaning and will remain an internal memory from that momentous and historic day. Those photographs now hang in my office. I express my appreciation to you, and I will remember that moment forever.

Your Excellency has left an extraordinary historical legacy, and going forward will continue to lead a great change in history.

Your Excellency, I remember clearly the promise I made 30 days ago to have experts from our two countries sit down face-to-face in a few weeks’ time to discuss the work that Your Excellency and I need to do in the future. However, the current environment is different from that day.

My belief was that the provocative combined military exercises would either be cancelled or postponed ahead of our two countries’ working-level negotiations where we would continue to discuss important matters. Against whom is the combined military exercises taking place in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, who are they trying to block, and who are they intended to defeat and attack?

It can’t be that the South Korean forces are discussing the issue of wartime operational control in order to fight a tribe on the other side of the earth or to fight against the Iranian army 70,000 kilometers away. Conceptually and hypothetically, the main target of the war preparatory exercises is our own military. This is not our misunderstanding.

As if to support our view, a few days ago the person who they call the minister of national defense of South Korea said that the modernization of our conventional commercial weapons was deemed a “provocation” and a “threat” and that if we continue to “provoke” and “threaten” they will classify my administration and military as an “enemy.” Now and in the future, South Korean military cannot be my enemy. As you mentioned at some point, we have a strong military without the need of special means, and the truth is that South Korean military is no match against my military.

Putting aside the disparity in military strength, I have no intention of either attacking South Korea or of starting a war. I truly do not have those thoughts. The problem is, why do they engage in this noisy commotion with these exercises, saying that they are preparing themselves with the assumption that there will be a bloody fratricidal war that nobody wants to think about it? Instead it would be wiser for them to think of ways to reduce military tensions by improving relations with us.

The thing I like even less is that the US military is engaged in these paranoid and hypersensitive actions with the South Korean people. I do not understand the purpose of having these “wargames” that we consider as threatening at the time when we are looking ahead of this very important meeting. At present, it is very difficult for me and my people to understand your side’s and the South Korean authority’s decisions and actions. The most important cause of what your side considers the headache of “missile threats” and nuclear problem is the military actions of your side and the South Korean military that threatens our safety. And until these elements are eliminated, no changed outcome can be anticipated.

I am clearly offended and I do not want to hide this feeling from you. I am really, very offended. At every opportunity after we met, you said there are no more artificial earthquakes and no objects flying in the sky. You also said that the detainees have been released and returned and the remains have been returned.

In this vein, I have done more than I can at this present stage, very responsively and practically in order to keep the trust we have. However, what has Your Excellency done and what am I to explain to my people about what has changed since we met? Have actions been relaxed or any my country’s external environments been improved? Have military exercises been stopped? It would be a big mistake if US self-assesses this as an accomplishment of US policy toward DPRK through use of pressure and dialogue.

I do not wish to do anything to disappoint you any time soon, nor do I plan to do so. If you do not think of our relationship as a stepping stone that only benefits you, then you would not make me look like an idiot that will only give without getting anything in return.

My letter has gone long, but to state my main point, regrettably now is not the time to engage in working-level talks. It is not the right atmosphere in my country, and if we were to move forward with working-level talks now, our leadership would be viewed as strange by the outside world and by us as well. We will not have to reconsider the working-level talks when the “wargames” of the US and South Korea that I so strongly asked to be stopped becomes a thing of the past weekend. What kind of working level talks could we possibly have? It obviously would not be about the sanctions relief, which I very much wanted, nor will it be about the location of our fourth summit talks.

To put it another way, we are not in a hurry. If this were like Hanoi, just a few months ago, when I held onto the dream of hastening the start of a better life, it would be different. But we are in a different situation, and we are not in a hurry.

And there are now about five months left until the end of the year, which I commented on at one point. In coming up with a good agreement, these months can be seen as long or as short depending on what we do. Please reach out to me again when the “military game” and “wargame” with South Korea has ended. At that time, we will discuss the time and location of the working-level talks.

Your Excellency, I am immensely proud and honored that we have a relationship where I can send and receive such candid thoughts with you. You are a statesman with great might. I consider it an honor to have this special relationship with you. I will put in even greater effort, Mr. President, to protect my faith in you.

As you also commented while we were improvement testing very small missiles, which all nations do, we slightly surprised the fools in the south and it was quite amusing.

I hope that you always enjoy good health, Mr. President, and my wish is for you to realize even greater accomplishments.

To your respected First Lady and your loving family, I send my warm wishes and greetings.

Sincerely,

Kim Jong Un

August 5, 2019