On Thursday, hours before the scheduled meeting of South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump in Washington, North Korean leader Kim Jung-un gave a speech in which he emphasized the importance of self-reliance for his country. Kim stressed that he would continue his efforts to build a self-supporting national economy for North Korean in order to “deal a telling blow to the hostile forces who go with bloodshot eyes miscalculating that sanctions can bring [North Korea] to its knees.”
This was the first time Kim made an official statement about the state of his country after the breakdown of the US-North Korea nuclear summit in Vietnam earlier this year. That summit ended at the initiative of the US, allegedly because North Korean demanded that the US lift all sanctions on the regime, which the US government was not willing to do. North Korea later denied that it had asked for the complete removal of sanctions.
Read more: North Korea must deliver ‘blow’ to those imposing sanctions
