On Thursday, December 20, North Korea’s outward-facing Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) featured a commentary attributed to the pen name Jong Hyon that provides what might be seen as the country’s “last word” on the events of 2018—a year of remarkable inter-Korean and U.S.-DPRK diplomacy.

The core of the commentary is a message that has been a central component of North Korean messaging this year: that Washington and Pyongyang should arrive at a “new way” of doing business and abandon the unconstructive “old way.”

That builds on the very first operative point