In an apparent olive branch to South Korea, Kim agreed to hold talks with Seoul and said he would send delegates to the Winter Olympics in South Korea.
The meeting, the first since December 2015, will take place on January 9 in Panmunjom, the truce village in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula.
South Korean President Moon Jae-In said that “overly optimistic expectations” were ‘undesirable” but added: “We will do our best to make the Pyeongchang Olympics an Olympics for peace and settle the nuclear issue peacefully.”
After months of high tensions over the North’s weapons ambitions — last year it launched missiles capable of reaching the US mainland and carried out its most powerful nuclear test to date, proclaiming it a hydrogen bomb — events have moved quickly in recent days.
In his New Year speech, Kim said the country had completed its nuclear deterrent — Pyongyang says it needs to defend itself against a US invasions — and he had a “nuclear button on my desk”.
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Despite the gesture seeming as a thawing of tensions, sceptics say Kim is trying to drive a wedge between allies American and South Korea at a time when the international community should remain united in putting pressure and sanctions on the North over its weapons programmes.
The US has 28,500 troops stationed in the South to defend it from the North.
Moon has long advocated engagement with the North to bring it to the negotiating table, while the US has insisted that it first take concrete steps towards disarmament.
“It’s quite obvious that Kim’s New Year speech is aimed at driving a wedge between the US and the South,” Handong University political science professor Park Won-Gon told AFP.
A South Korean spy agency warned North Korea may view its attendance at the Games as “help” for the south.
A report, by the National Security Strategy (INSS) under Seoul’s spy agency, said: “In exchange for [dialogue], it cannot be ruled out that it would demand Seoul lift economic sanctions against it and resume economic cooperative projects and humanitarian aid.”
A move likely to anger the US.
Adam Mount of the Federation of American Scientists added: “Symbolic actions like Olympic participation and Panmunjom chats mean little on their own and are not worth paying for.
“But if they pause tests or serve as a wedge for broader talks, they’re vital.”
Professor Koh Yu-Hwan of Dongguk University told AFP: “Kim was apparently concerned that there is growing possibility of the US resorting to a military option. He has found an escape in relations with the South.”