North Korea talks tough as U.S. negotiator Stephen E. Biegun lands in Seoul

The Trump administration’s top nuclear negotiator arrived in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss ways to break the months-long stalemate in diplomacy with North Korea, even as Pyongyang was ridiculing the idea of restarting denuclearization talks with Washington.

Hours before Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun arrived, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime slammed recent South Korean calls for renewed dialogue as “nonsensical,” asserting that Seoul had become irrelevant in the peace process.

Undeterred, Mr. Biegun said his three-day stay will focus on discussions about cooperation on a range of issues in meetings with officials in South Korea and Japan, including the “final, fully verified denuclearization” of North Korea.

U.S. officials did not comment on the dismissive signals from North Korea, which come after months of provocations and missile tests by Pyongyang and particularly statements from Pyongyang targeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has labored to keep direct dialogue with the North alive.

After two high-profile summits in 2018 and early 2019, President Trump and Mr. Kim have had only one brief photo opportunity at the Korean DMZ and “working-level” contacts between lower-level officials have stalled as well.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Mr. Beigun landed at the U.S. Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, and that Alex Wong, the Trump administration’s deputy special representative for North Korea negotiations, was thought to be traveling with him.

U.S. Embassy officials said the U.S. team underwent COVID-19 testing upon arrival “out of an abundance of caution.” South Korea has been widely hailed for its ability to contain the deadly pandemic, reporting fewer than 70 new cases a day for more than a month after a severe early outbreak in March.

The coronavirus picture is less clear to the North, where the months since the pandemic began in neighboring China have brought heightened uncertainty around the status of the Kim regime, as well as rumors Mr. Kim himself may be dealing with personal health crisis.

Analysts say North Korea may be avoiding engagement with Washington until after the upcoming U.S. election. And, recent weeks have seen North-South relations plummet, particularly in the face of Seoul’s calls for revived U.S.-North Korea talks.

Senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official Kwon Jong-gun told state media in Pyongyang on Tuesday that the regime has “no intention to sit face-to-face with U.S.,” according to The Associated Press.

The North also recently froze on all communication with the South — a move dramatized by the blowing up of an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the North-South border.

Analysts say the North’s new assertiveness may be tied to the rise of Kim Jong-il’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, who has been increasingly visible in Pyongyang since Mr. Kim’s roughly month-long disappearance from public view in April amid a suspected health scare.

Pyongyang has said the recent communications freeze was ordered by Ms. Kim in coordination with former North Korea spy chief Kim Yong-chol — a notoriously anti-Seoul hardliner.

U.S.-North Korean talks have been stalled since the February 2019 Hanoi summit, with Mr. Trump saying he walked away because the North demanded sweeping sanctions relief in exchange for only a limited commitment to destroy part of its nuclear arsenal.

Duyeon Kim, a northeast Asia specialist and nuclear policy analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the North’s belligerent moves may be driven by true frustration with South Korea as a mediator, but may also just be an attempt to distract ordinary North Koreans from Mr. Kim’s failure to bring economic growth.

“Behind the rage appears to be a North Korean leadership desperate to find solutions for the country’s economic difficulties,” Ms. Kim wrote in an analysis published by the Crisis Group on Tuesday. “The best way for the regime to divert attention from Kim’s performance at home is to deflect his constituents’ gaze outward.”

“At the same time,” she wrote, “North Korean statements for over a year, taken together, suggest that Pyongyang feels betrayed by Seoul’s confident assertions that it could persuade Washington to relax some sanctions and allow the beginning of cross-border economic projects.”