North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that South Korea would be "permanently excluded from the category of kinship" while signaling openness to dialogue with the United States, stating that the future of U.S.-North Korea relations "depends entirely on the U.S."
According to the Korean Central News Agency on the 26th, Kim made the remarks during his summary report at the 9th Workers' Party Congress held on the 20th-21st.
Kim described the current South Korean government's conciliatory stance as "a clumsy deceptive act and a poor performance," adding that North Korea "cannot rule out the complete collapse of South Korea" if its security environment is threatened.
In contrast, Kim expressed willingness for U.S.-North Korea dialogue, stating: "If the U.S. withdraws its hostile policy, there is no reason we cannot get along well."
Kim emphasized that "expanding and strengthening our national nuclear force and thoroughly exercising our status as a nuclear-armed state is the unwavering will of our party."
He maintained that North Korea would "firmly uphold the toughest stance as the unchanged basis of our policy toward the U.S." However, he added: "If the U.S. respects the current status of our state as stipulated in the DPRK constitution and withdraws its hostile policy toward us, we have no reason not to get along well with the U.S."
Kim warned that if the U.S. "continues its confrontational approach without breaking from its conventional practices toward us, we will consistently respond proportionately, and we have more than enough means and methods to do so."
He stated: "The prospects for DPRK-U.S. relations depend entirely on the U.S. side's attitude. Whether it is peaceful coexistence or permanent confrontation, we are prepared for everything, and the choice is not ours to make."
Regarding South Korea, Kim reaffirmed the "two hostile states" stance, declaring: "There is absolutely nothing to discuss with South Korea, the most hostile entity, and we will permanently exclude South Korea from the category of kinship."
Kim stressed that this policy toward South Korea was being "proclaimed again through the party congress, the supreme leading body of the ruling party that determines national lines and policies."
Specifically criticizing the Lee Jae-myung administration, Kim said: "The conciliatory attitude outwardly expressed by South Korea's current ruling regime is a clumsy deceptive act and a poor performance."
He dismissed engagement with South Korea as "an erroneous practice that should no longer continue—dealing with a harmful entity that outwardly advocates deceptive reconciliation and peace while plotting our disarmament under the banner of 'denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,' held captive by the inertia of calling them the same nation, using absolutely impossible reconciliation and unification as an excuse."
Kim ruled out any progress in inter-Korean relations, stating: "As long as South Korea cannot escape its geopolitical condition of sharing a border with us, the only way to live safely is to abandon everything with us and not touch us."
He escalated threats by demanding South Korea cease "unnecessary actions that could break the existing stability," claiming that "the use of all physical force applicable to a hostile state, including preemptive strike missions," is theoretically and technically possible.
Kim asserted: "If South Korea's reckless behavior at the doorstep of a nuclear-armed state is recognized as an act that damages our security environment, we can initiate any action. On the extension of that action, the possibility of South Korea's complete collapse cannot be ruled out."
Kim also signaled he would maintain "strategic ambiguity," stating: "Our adversaries do not know what we are planning and calculating. They cannot know, and they should not know. That is an inescapable anxiety and fear for them."
Meanwhile, North Korea held a military parade at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on the evening of the 25th to commemorate the party congress.