North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has said he is ready for “both dialogue and confrontation” with the United States .

The comments, made in a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of his ruling Workers’ Party of Korea on Thursday, are the first high-level suggestion of talks since US President Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump, who met Mr Kim three times.

Pyongyang has so far rebuffed Mr Biden’s requests for dialogue as a “time-delaying trick” and lambasted the US president’s comments that were critical of North Korea’s arms build-up.

Mr Biden’s special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, is due to hold talks with his counterparts from Seoul and Tokyo on Monday during his visit.

But the North Korean leader tempered the remarks with a call for the country to “get fully prepared for confrontation in order to protect the dignity of our state and its interests,” according to a report yesterday from the official Korean Central News Agency. The message follows a pledge from Mr Kim made at the start of the year to develop more advanced nuclear technology.

Mr Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at the White House in April and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in May, the first foreign leaders to be invited to his official residence.

The visits signalled the importance he places on his country’s relationship with the two allies, which together host the bulk of US troops in Asia. Mr Moon has been pressing the US to resume stalled nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang.

“Kim’s courteous reminder will probably be received differently in Washington and Seoul,” said Soo Kim, a Rand Corporation policy analyst who previously worked at theCIA.

She said the message from the North Korean leader will not do much to change Mr Biden’s approach but it could offer encouragement to the Moon administration, which has been “dangling carrots before Kim to entice the North Koreans to return to the dialogue table”.

“Kim will only grant dialogue to the US and South Korea when his conditions are met,” Ms Kim said.

The North Korean leader has shown no interest in resuming nuclear talks that could offer relief from sanctions choking his state’s economy.

 North Korea’s economy will barely grow this year after its worst contraction in decades as it continues to struggle with the pandemic, international sanctions to punish it for its nuclear and missile testing and a lack of trade with its main benefactor, China, Fitch Solutions said in April.