ABC News January 1, 2019

In 'unprecedented' speech, Kim Jong Un says North Korea is ready for another summit with US, but warns against sanctions

WATCH: North Korea warns US over stalled nuclear talks

Kim Jong Un says he is ready to sit down again with President Donald Trump -- but also warned the United States against imposing more sanctions.

During his annual televised New Year's speech, the North Korean leader said he hopes a follow-up summit meeting will “produce an outcome welcomed by the international community.”

Kim and Trump met in June in Singapore for the first time in the history of the rival countries.

The Associated Press
FILE - In this June 12, 2018, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands prior to their meeting on Sentosa Island in Singapore. Kim Jong Un will be keeping North Korea watchers busy on New Year’s Day, when he is expected to give his annual speech laying out the country’s top priorities for the year ahead. Kim has a lot to talk about, like the future of his nukes, what he might want to get out of a second summit with President Trump and what’s next in his peace offensive with the South. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

But in the 30-minute speech on New Year's Day, Kim also warned that North Korea may choose a “new path” if the United States continues to “break its promises and misjudges our patience by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure."

In the months since the historic summit, leaders from both countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have been trying to negotiate a second meeting between Trump and Kim. Both countries, however, have been at an impasse about the progress of denuclearization.

(MORE: Trump and Kim in Singapore for historic US-North Korea summit)

Kim, meanwhile, also called for stronger ties with South Korea and announced a willingness to resume two inter-Korean cooperative projects in the North -- Kaesong Industrial park and Mount Kumgang tourist resort -- which had been halted due to strained relations.

AP
In this undated image from video distributed on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019, by North Korean broadcaster KRT, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers a speech in North Korea. North Korean leader Kim says he hopes to extend his high-stakes nuclear summitry with President Donald Trump into 2019, but also warns Washington not to test North Koreans' patience with sanctions and pressure. (KRT via AP)

Neither of those are currently possible for South Korea unless sanctions on the North are removed.

“Kim is hinting that if things come to worse, North Korea could go back to the economic-nuclear dual path,” Cheong Seong-chang, director of unification strategic studies program at the independent Seoul-based think tank Sejong Institute, told ABC News.

The North Korean leader is also indirectly demanding his neighbors to the South push the U.S. and U.N Security Council harder to lift sanctions in exchange for the two countries to resume inter-Korean cooperative projects, Cheong said.

MORE: North, South Korea hold symbolic groundbreaking ceremony to link railroads across border

Kim’s speech came against the backdrop of a new look with a modern setting -- a carpeted library full of books, plush leather sofa and an armchair set with a mega-sized portrait painting of his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung hanging on the wall -- a sharp contrast to his usual stiff public speeches at a podium in front of tens of thousands people who dutifully respond with thunderous applause.

MORE: Kim Jong Un reaffirms commitment to denuclearization in letter to South Korean president

“It looks like he wanted to show off” that he is ready and recharged to deal with the international community after the June summit, Cheong explained.

The new look also comes in the wake of three summits -- two at the border town Panmunjom and the latest in Pyongyang -- with South Korean President Moon Jae In, Cheong added.

“Up until even last year, he stood and read the New Year’s speech in a rather stiff and strong tone," Cheong said. "But this time his voice was very calm and stable. It was unprecedented.”

ABC News' Hakyung Kate Lee contributed to this report.