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Mr. Kim’s comments suggest Pyongyang’s hardened stance on nuclear talks with Washington isn’t softening. Working-level negotiations broke off earlier this month in Sweden. The Kim regime has since threatened to end diplomacy unless Washington takes a substantial step toward Pyongyang’s position before the end of the year.

The State Department offered a different account of the Oct. 5 meeting held by Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative on North Korea, and the chief North Korean negotiator, Kim Myong Gil. The U.S. said it had brought “creative ideas” and hoped talks would pick back up within two weeks.

“We’ll see where that goes,” Randall Schriver, the U.S.’s assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said of the talks at a security conference this week. “But in the meantime, we’ve been doing our part to try to maintain pressure on Pyongyang through the enforcement of sanctions.”

Mr. Kim’s visit to Mount Paektu—the nation’s most sacred mountain which is believed in North Korea to be the birthplace of his late father—carries significance. He has traveled there before making decisions, most recently ahead of his New Year’s address in 2018. During that speech, he extended an olive branch to South Korea, signaling the North was “open to dialogue.”

The gesture created momentum for Mr. Kim’s first summit with President Trump last year in Singapore, plus other overseas visits to meet world leaders in China, Russia and Vietnam. When South Korean President Moon Jae-in visited Pyongyang in September 2018, the leaders of the two Koreas hiked Mount Paektu together.

It isn’t clear what Mr. Kim’s strategy is after working-level talks broke down in Stockholm. Experts caution that Pyongyang has often stampeded away from talks as a negotiating strategy, seeking to escalate tensions in an effort to win concessions for moderating its bad behavior.

Neither the U.S. nor the North has publicly said when, or where, another round of working-level talks will occur. The two sides still need to hash out the framework for a deal where Pyongyang relinquishes its nuclear arsenal in exchange for sanctions relief.

The North’s recent disappointment may have resulted from the isolated regime misreading the situation before going to Sweden, observers of the Kim regime say.

North Korea assumed the recent departure of former national security adviser John Bolton would result in a more flexible stance from Washington, said Joseph Yun, the former U.S. special representative for North Korea, at a Monday event in Washington.

Last month, Pyongyang’s chief negotiator, Kim Myong Gil, praised Mr. Trump for Mr. Bolton’s dismissal, before talks occurred in Sweden. “I think they want to take all the credit for getting John Bolton fired,” Mr. Yun said.

But Pyongyang’s recent test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile—coming just hours after agreeing to meet in Stockholm—may have ruined its chances for a deal, Mr. Yun added, as Washington wouldn’t accept a “weak offer” after a show of force.

The North Korean delegation entered talks in Sweden with hopes that the U.S. would offer concessions first, while having to hand over only a limited portion of its nuclear program, said Lee Yong-joon, a former South Korean diplomat who was involved in prior nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

“The only reason North Korea continues to come back to the table is for sanctions relief,” Mr. Lee said.