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US-N. Korea dialogue could resume 'any time' but no signs of direct contact: spy agency

A handout photo of US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their second summit meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel on February 27, 2019, in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Getty Images)

North Korea and the United States could resume dialogue "at any time in the future," but direct communication cannot be confirmed, the National Intelligence Service revealed Tuesday.

According to Rep. Youn Kun-young of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the Intelligence Committee, the NIS believes a meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is possible. However, the agency has so far been unable to verify whether any communication has taken place between Washington and Pyongyang.

The NIS' assessment was the latest development after Trump recently showed his willingness to meet Kim by the end of this year and downsized an annual joint military exercise with South Korea. North Korea largely remained silent.

Trump and Kim have officially met three times, including the two bilateral summits in June 2018 and February 2019, when then-President Moon Jae-in sought reconciliation with the North.

Inter-Korean ties, however, began to sour towards the end of Moon's term, and deteriorated further during the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. The Yoon administration's confrontational stance led to Pyongyang's declaration of its "two hostile states" doctrine in 2023.

According to Rep. Youn, Seoul has yet to communicate with Pyongyang regarding a proposal for multilateral talks involving the two Koreas.

President Lee, in his Liberation Day speech in August, touted multilateral talks "between parties involved" as a means of ending the war on the Korean Peninsula and stopping North Korea's nuclear capability from further developing. Though an armistice was signed in 1953, the two Koreas remain technically at war.

Regarding frequent media exposure of Kim Ju-ae, daughter of the North Korean leader, the NIS said North Korea was "virtually in the process of nominating her as the heir" while "creating an image of her as a (new) leader of North Korean people," according to Youn.

National Intelligence Service chief Lee Jong-seok (center, front) appears at a general meeting of the Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly on Tuesday. (Yoon Chang-bin/The Korea Herald)

The agency has also obtained a document from North Korea's ruling Workers Party of Korea and a drawing related to North Korea's nuclear weapons, said People Power Party lawmaker Rep. Yoo Yeong-ha, another member of the Intelligence Committee. Yoo added the agency was conducting analyses of the materials.

The NIS has blocked attempts to leak new nuclear reactor drawings and photos of the South Korea-made helicopter Surion from South Korea to North Korea, said Yoo, without disclosing details.

The spy agency has also briefed members of the Intelligence Committee about North Korea's recent expansion of its reconnaissance bureau. According to Yoo, the NIS believes the expansion is aimed at strengthening North Korea's counterintelligence capacity and allowing operations intelligence it gathered in the battlefields of Ukraine to be processed there.

consnow@heraldcorp.com