Pyongyang tells diplomats to drop denuclearization, push arms control instead

North Korea’s government issued a strategic directive in late March ordering its foreign affairs and military officials to abandon denuclearization as a negotiating framework and pursue arms control talks with the United States instead, according to a source in Pyongyang who spoke to Daily NK on Wednesday. 

“The government issued a strategic directive to the foreign affairs and military sectors in late March declaring that North Korea’s nuclear-armed status is an irreversible, unalterable fact both at home and abroad, and that the framework for future negotiations with the United States will shift from denuclearization to arms control,” the source said.

The directive follows the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, held in February, at which the party formally designated nuclear forces as the absolute foundation of the state’s existence. At the congress, the source said, North Korea calculated that it would pursue formal US recognition of its nuclear status while negotiating military capabilities on equal footing, using that as the basis for securing sanctions relief.

Rodong Sinmun, the party’s official newspaper, reported after the congress that North Korea had made its nuclear-armed status “completely irreversible” and that the country’s abandonment of nuclear weapons was “absolutely out of the question as long as the world does not change wholesale.” The paper also quoted language leaving open the possibility of conditional engagement: if the United States respects North Korea’s constitutional status and withdraws its hostile policy toward the country, Pyongyang sees no reason it could not maintain good relations with Washington.

Officials briefed on new posture as ideological campaign intensifies

Inside party organizations, officials have been told the nuclear deterrent is the sole reason the United States and its allies refrain from military action against North Korea. High-intensity ideological education sessions reinforcing the legitimacy of nuclear possession are being conducted across party organs.

“The nuclear weapon has gone beyond being the ‘backbone of national defense’ — it is now described as an ‘all-capable sword that guarantees the peaceful environment for economic construction,'” the source said. “In the past it was sometimes mentioned as a card for negotiations, but now a hard order has come down to erase the word denuclearization from the diplomatic dictionary altogether.”

The source said the operational goal stated in internal party documents is to make adversaries accept North Korea’s nuclear status without qualification. Under the proposed approach to Washington, Pyongyang would acknowledge that both sides hold nuclear and missile capabilities and negotiate mutual limits on those capabilities in parallel with sanctions relief.

“Tactical moves are taking shape to propose arms control negotiations to the United States along the lines of: our nuclear possession is an established fact, so let us coexist peacefully by mutually regulating each other’s nuclear and missile levels,” the source said, adding that the regime is actively developing scenarios to leverage shifts in the international environment or a change in the US administration to obtain practical sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear freeze or reduction commitments.

Ordinary North Koreans have not shared party cadres’ enthusiasm for the new posture. The source said that among the general population, which continues to face severe economic hardship, the official emphasis on nuclear-power status has been met with a blunt response.

“While cadres are displaying strong pride in being a nuclear power, ordinary people struggling with extreme hardship in their daily lives are reacting with cynicism — asking what nuclear status does for people who can’t eat,” the source said.

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