North Korea’s new submarine
The revelation is clearly a message for Trump.
North Korea, angered by US military exercises, plans to resume nuclear, missile, testds
Irate Over Military Exercises, North Korea Threatens To Resume Nuclear, Missile Tests https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742129952/irate-over-military-exercises-north-korea-threatens-to-resume-nuclear-missile-te, July 16, 2019, SASHA INGBER
North Korea warned Tuesday that negotiations with the United States could falter and that its nuclear and missile tests might resume if the U.S. and South Korea move forward with planned military exercises.
An unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the U.S. of “unilaterally reneging on its commitments” in a statement released Tuesday by the Korean Central News Agency. The spokesperson said North Korea is “gradually losing our justification to follow through on the commitments we made with the U.S.” and that verbal pledges are not “a legal document inscribed on a paper.”
After President Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year in Singapore, Trump announced that he would call off large military exercises with South Korea as a goodwill gesture to help kickstart negotiations.
North Korea has not tested long-range missiles since 2017.
Tuesday’s letter comes after Trump made a sudden visit to see Kim in June. They sat together in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas as cameras flashed, and Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot into North Korea. He called it “a great honor.”
They agreed to resume talks, but little progress has been made toward denuclearization, and no diplomatic meetings are known to have taken place since that June sit-down.
The U.S.-South Korean combined military exercises, called Dong Maeng, are expected to take place in August.
North Korea has long denounced such military drills, viewing them as a threat to its sovereignty. “It is crystal clear that it is an actual drill and a rehearsal of war aimed at militarily occupying our Republic by surprise attack,” the spokesperson said Tuesday.
Joint military exercises have taken place for decadesbecause the Korean peninsula was still technically in a state of war since the signing of an armistice agreement in 1953.
Although the United States has vowed to “indefinitely suspend” certain drills, smaller exercises are still help for South Korean and U.S. troops.
Pyongyang tested suspected short-range missiles in May. American officials drew a distinction between those tests and the launches of long-range ballistic missiles, which may be capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
USA Security Adviser John Bolton denies report of ‘nuclear freeze’ agreement with North Korea
 John Bolton shoots down report of ‘nuclear freeze’ agreement with North KoreaWhite House adviser dismisses reports of a ‘freeze’ of North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Politico, By QUINT FORGEY 7/1/19, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton on Monday dismissed reports that the administration is considering agreeing to a “freeze” of North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal as opposed to a more comprehensive denuclearization pact.Prior to U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting Sunday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — where Trump became the first sitting commander-in-chief to step into the isolated communist state — the New York Times reported that administration officials have been mulling a deal with Pyongyang to halt production of new nuclear material as a way to kickstart a new round of talks with Kim’s regime. But the head of Trump’s National Security Council slammed the Times story, writing online that “there should be consequences” for its publishing. Bolton did not specify whether it was the Times or whoever its source was that should face those consequences.
“I read this NYT story with curiosity. Neither the NSC staff nor I have discussed or heard of any desire to ‘settle for a nuclear freeze by North Korea,’” Bolton tweeted, describing the report as “a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the President.”…… The North Korean government has been especially critical of Bolton throughout Trump’s yearlong crusade to broker an arms agreement with Pyongyang, with a foreign ministry spokesman branding the hawkish former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations as a “warmonger” and “defective human product” in May. https://www.politico.eu/article/john-bolton-shoots-down-report-of-nuclear-freeze-agreement-with-north-korea/ |
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Report that Trump administration is considering accepting North Korea as a nuclear power
New York Times: Trump administration mulling plan that would accept North Korea as a nuclear power, By Devan Cole, CNN July 1, 2019 Washington The Trump administration is mulling a potential deal with North Korea that would accept the country as a nuclear power if it freezes its existing nuclear programs in exchange for the US lifting its “most onerous” sanctions against the country, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The plan would aim to prevent more nuclear weapons from being created in the country, but “it would not, at least in the near future, dismantle any existing weapons, variously estimated at 20 to 60. Nor would it limit the North’s missile capability,” according to the paper.
The Times, which noted that US officials previously said they would never support such a plan, said officials in the administration hope the idea “might create a foundation for a new round of negotiations” with North Korea and noted that the administration’s current goal is still to fully denuclearize the country.
………. As a part of the plan reported by the Times, US negotiators would try to get North Korean negotiators to agree to “expand the definition” of Yongbyon, the country’s main nuclear-fuel production site. Under the potentially new definition of Yongbyon, the site would reach “beyond its physical barriers” to include various facilities around the country, including one where America and South Korea believe the country is producing uranium fuel.
A senior US official involved in North Korean policy told the Times “there was no way to know if North Korea would agree to this,” and noted that in the past, North Korean negotiators “insisted” that only Kim “could define what dismantling Yongbyon meant,” according to the report.
Stephen E. Biegun, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, told the Times on Sunday that the paper’s account of the administration’s potential deal was “pure speculation” and that his team was “not preparing any new proposal currently,” saying, “What is accurate is not new, and what is new is not accurate.”
White House national security adviser John Bolton also disputed the Times report Monday, tweeting that he read the story “with curiosity.”……….
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN’s John Berman that “the general idea of accepting the current nuclear arsenal, whatever it is, is a good start point.”
“I’ve come around to the position some months ago that perhaps as at least an initial plateau, in the interest of getting something done, it might be worth considering capping what the North Koreans have now and then maybe on a much longer term basis trying, you know, to get them to reduce their nuclear holdings to zero, which I think is going to be very difficult,” Clapper said Monday on CNN’s “New Day.”
Clapper, who served in the Obama administration, said the plan reported by the Times would “require some very complex negotiations” and that it would need a verification regime, which “would be a hard pill for the North Koreans to swallow.”https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/01/politics/north-korea-nuclear-freeze-trump-administration/index.html
‘Wonderful chemistry’ between Trump and Kim, as nuclear negotiations remain stalled
Keeping Up With the Plot of the Trump-Kim Nuclear Show, Bloomberg, By Jon Herskovitz and Youkyung Lee, July 1, 2019, Three meetings between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea resulted in no concrete plans to end Pyongyang’s atomic ambitions. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have toned down hostile rhetoric since they first shook hands in Singapore in June 2018. They were cordial even after their second summit broke down in Hanoi in February, and took an historic stroll together into North Korea four months later. All the while, Pyongyang’s nuclear program quietly advanced as U.S.-backed sanctions choked its moribund economy. The two countries can’t agree on what the denuclearization of North Korea means and what rewards should be given, if any, in response to Pyongyang’s moves toward disarmament. But Trump has invited Kim to the White House, while a top aide to Kim has touted the “mysteriously wonderful” chemistry between the two leaders.
1. What have they agreed to?
The first summit resulted in a bare-bones declaration that contained four main items: To normalize ties between the U.S. and North Korea, formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, repatriate U.S. war remains and — crucially — “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” But “work toward” is undefined. It’s also unclear whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella over South Korea is included. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo says that Kim accepted the “final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea.” North Korea points out the agreement referred to the entire peninsula and insists U.S. weapons must go at the same time, or it would be left vulnerable to attack. A meeting between Kim and Trump within the Demilitarized Zone in June 2019 led to an agreement to resume working-level talks that could iron out details of any deal.
2. What does the U.S. want?
To start, the U.S. wants North Korea to provide an inventory of weapons, facilities and fissile material it has produced. Kim’s regime calls that akin to asking for a “target list.” Further steps would include inspections, closing facilities and destroying weapons, and even surrendering nuclear material, according to proliferation experts. Past talks have faltered on the question of inspections and verification.
3. What does North Korea want?
Kim wants “corresponding measures,” or immediate rewards, for any steps his regime makes. In a televised New Year’s address, Kim threatened to take a “new path” if Washington didn’t relax crippling economic sanctions.
He signaled that any deal might require weakening the U.S.-South Korean alliance, urging Seoul not to resume military exercises with the American side. And he made clear that he believed the denuclearization pledge includes “strategic assets” such as America’s nuclear-capable planes and warships. But his language was less bellicose than past years, possibly reflecting his limited options.
4. What has North Korea offered?
In Hanoi, North Korea offered to shut down parts of its Yongbyon nuclear complex, which has served as the crown jewel of its atomic program, in return for sanctions relief. The aging facility about 60 miles north of Pyongyang was once the main source of its fissile material, turning out roughly enough plutonium each year for one atomic bomb. But North Korea has since turned to uranium enrichment for weapons. Still, Yongbyon remains its main atomic research facility and a complete closure would affect its nuclear program…….. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-01/keeping-up-with-plot-of-the-trump-kim-nuclear-show-quicktake
Tokyo monitoring USA-North Korea negotiations, hoping that there will be some real improvement
Japan hopes latest Trump-Kim meeting will help get nuclear, abduction talks moving again, Japan Times , 29 June
KYODO, Japan hopes the third meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday will reinvigorate stalled denuclearization talks and help resolve the issue of past abductions of Japanese citizens.
“The meeting could serve as an opportunity for North Korea to come out of its shell,” a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
Trump and Kim held talks in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas and agreed to restart denuclearization talks within weeks following the rupture of their last summit in Hanoi in February.
Tokyo is closely monitoring whether the two countries will move forward negotiations on the denuclearization of North Korea and improve their ties, which could help the U.S. government set up a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kim, as the Japanese leader is hoping for……….https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/30/national/japan-hopes-latest-trump-kim-meeting-will-help-get-nuclear-abduction-talks-moving/#.XRkibT8zbGg
A third ‘nuclear summit’ between Trump and Kim?
- Officials from North Korea and the United States are holding “informal” talks about a third nuclear summit in the future, South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in said Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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- The Trump administration has held two summits with North Korea in the past year, the first in Singapore in June 2018 and another in Hanoi this past February, neither of which were able to produce a concrete de-nuclearization deal.
- Trump is scheduled to travel to Seoul, South Korea on Saturday after he attends the G-20 summit in Japan, which could present an opportunity for American and North Korean officials to set plans for a third summit.
- Under the Trump administration, the US has pursued far friendlier relations with North Korea than other nations, with Trump even going as far as to frequently praise North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un……. . https://www.insider.com/us-north-korea-are-in-talks-for-third-nuclear-summit-2019-6
Trump sent Kim Jong Un an ‘excellent’ letter
North Korea says Trump sent Kim Jong Un an ‘excellent’ letter amid stalled nuclear diplomacy, abc news, June 23, 2019,
The White House confirmed that Trump had sent a letter to Kim.
“Correspondence between the two leaders has been ongoing,” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
It comes after nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea broke down after the failed summit between Kim and Trump in February in Vietnam.
The U.S. is demanding that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons entirely before international sanctions are lifted. North Korea is seeking a step-by-step approach in which moves toward denuclearization are matched by concessions from the U.S., notably a relaxation of the sanctions.
Kim “said with satisfaction that the letter is of excellent content,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency reported.
“Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” the agency said, without elaborating.
South Korea’s presidential office said it sees the exchange of letters between Kim and Trump as a positive development for keeping the momentum for dialogue alive……….
Nuclear negotiations have been at a standstill, but Trump recently told reporters he received a “beautiful” letter from Kim, without revealing what was written. In an interview with TIME magazine last week, Trump said he also received a “birthday letter” from Kim that was delivered by hand a day before. ……..
Chinese President Xi to North Korea prior to G20 conference
Living with a nuclear North Korea: how to move beyond the impasse
Demanding complete denuclearization has long been a diplomatic dead-end. Markus Bell and Geoffrey Fattig ,June 13th, 2019
Three months after the breakdown of the Hanoi Summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has tested the waters of acquiescence by conducting two rounds of missile tests. In the past, a new round of United Nations sanctions would have followed such launches, escalating rhetoric and mutual condemnation.This had been the pattern, at least until President Trump veered off script by contradicting his National Security Advisor, John Bolton on the issue of whether the missile launches violated existing UN sanctions. During a recent visit to Japan, a presidential tweet dismissed the launches as small weapons that “disturbed some of my people…but not me.”Apart from the rather surreal aspect of witnessing an American President side with the leader of North Korea over his own advisors, it could be argued that Trump is actually the realist in the room, while the hawkish Bolton and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo are the ones living in a fantasyland.
By clinging to the notion that North Korea can be made to denuclearize through either increased pressure or sanctions relief, they are ensuring the continuation of a long-running policy failure that has allowed the North Korean regime to further the country’s nuclear program while precluding openings for addressing the egregious human rights situation inside the country.
The prevailing belief among Korea watchers, that Kim cannot be induced or coerced into denuclearizing, means that a nuclear North Korea is essentially a fait accompli— a reality to which all the sanctions, summits and handshakes in the world will not change.
TRADING A NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA FOR HUMAN SECURITY IN EAST ASIA
And it is this point that we recently argued: that the international community’s focus needs to shift from traditional security concerns (the nuclear program) to non-traditional (humanitarian concerns) as an avenue to engage in dialogue on improving living conditions for North Koreans.
Since we published our thoughts others have followed suit in agreeing that it is time to shift strategy toward managing North Korea’s ascent into the nuclear club rather than fruitlessly trying to prevent it.
Insisting on complete denuclearization is a recipe for a continued stalemate in future negotiations. And given Kim’s implied threat to restart nuclear tests next year if a deal with the U.S. cannot be struck, tensions could again rise.
A return to the saber rattling of 2017 would wipe away the trust built through the inter-Korean reconciliation efforts of South Korea’s Moon Jae-in administration that began during the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
This would be especially unfortunate, considering that the current security situation on the Korean peninsula represents the best of a bad set of options.
he past 18 months of relative silence from Pyongyang serves as a blueprint for how to manage socializing North Korea into the international community. In refraining from nuclear tests, North Korea has satisfied one of the conditions of the “Three Nos” proposal outlined by Siegfried Hecker, which remains the most realistic path forward for breaking the impasse.
In the interim, this route leads to an agreement – tacit or otherwise – allowing North Korea to maintain its current arsenal in return for a commitment to freeze its nuclear program and not proliferate weapons technology.
While such an outcome is hardly ideal, it is in keeping with the cold reality of the situation. A nuclear North Korea, socialized to international norms, also raises the possibility that the country will begin to act like a ‘normal state,’ bound to its various international obligations.
Such thinking is in line with Alexander Wendt’s “norm adoption,” whereby states accept established international standards of behavior as they experience the benefits of being integrated into the global community.
THE BENEFITS OF A ‘NORMAL’ NORTH KOREA
What kind of benefits might we see from a ‘normal’ North Korean state? Improvements in human rights are top of the wish list, including, for example, adherence to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which compels member states to prevent crimes against humanity in their territory.
In essence, a resolution of the nuclear issue would provide a fresh opening to engage the regime on human rights, and the subsequent opportunity to improve the lives of average North Koreans. ……..
FACING REALITY
A nuclear North Korea is now a reality, and negotiations that demand the country dismantle its nuclear program are unlikely to succeed.
Although the addition of one more state into the nuclear club is problematic, many of the arguments for denying North Korean ascendance into this group are insufficient, and a rigid adherence to this position by the international community could conceivably result in a second Korean War.
Acknowledging this reality and engaging with the country’s leadership offers an alternate path forward, and one that has the potential for bettering the lives of the people of North Korea. https://www.nknews.org/2019/06/living-with-a-nuclear-north-korea-how-to-move-beyond-the-impasse/
North Korea’s nuclear envoys apparently not executed or sent to labour re-education camp, as previously reported
North Korea’s former top nuclear envoy, Kim Yong-chol, accompanied leader Kim Jong Un to an art performance, state news agency KCNA said on Monday, signalling that the former spymaster is alive and remains a force in the power structure.
Sunday’s appearance followed conflicting reports of shake-ups in the team that led engagement with the United States last year, only for nuclear talks to collapse after Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump failed to strike a pact at a February summit…….
On Friday, South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo had said Kim Yong-chol, the leader’s right-hand man and a counterpart of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before the failed summit, had been sent to a labour and re-education camp, citing an unidentified North Korean source.
Asked about reports of a “shake-up” of Kim’s negotiating team in a May 5 interview with ABC News, Pompeo said it did appear that his future counterpart would be somebody else, adding: “But we don’t know that for sure.”……..
As Kim Jong-un’s point man for the nuclear talks, Kim Yong-chol was stripped of a key party post in apparent censure for the summit’s collapse, a South Korean lawmaker said in April.
That move may have cleared the way for long-time diplomats sidelined during last year’s process to take centre stage if talks with the United States resumed, analysts said…….
The Chosun Ilbo report, which Reuters was unable to confirm independently, also said North Korea executed its working-level nuclear envoy to the United States, Kim Hyok-chol. …..
Some officials who worked with Kim Yong-chol have been out of the public eye since the summit. But other seasoned diplomats who appeared to have been sidelined, including Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, were seen returning to the spotlight. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6195440/nkorea-shows-former-top-nuclear-envoy/
South Korean Report Says That North Korea Executed and Purged Top Nuclear Negotiators
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North Korea Executed and Purged Top Nuclear Negotiators, South Korean Report Says, NYT, By Choe Sang-Hun, May 30, 2019, SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has executed its special envoy to the United States on spying charges, as its leader, Kim Jong-un, has engineered a sweeping purge of the country’s top nuclear negotiators after the breakdown of his second summit meeting with President Trump, a major South Korean daily reported on Friday.Kim Hyok-chol, the envoy, was executed by firing squad in March at the Mirim airfield in a suburb of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest daily, reported on Friday, citing an anonymous source. Mr. Kim faced the charge that he was “won over by the American imperialists to betray the supreme leader,” the newspaper said.
Four officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry were also executed, the South Korean daily reported, without providing any hint of who its source might be or how it obtained the information. South Korean officials could not confirm the Chosun Ilbo report. North Korea has not reported any execution or purge of top officials in recent months. The country remains the world’s most isolated, and outside intelligence agencies have sometimes failed to figure out or have misinterpreted what was going on in the closely guarded inner circles of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. …… No American officials have spoken publicly of any intelligence they might have seen that would confirm or refute the rumors. Diplomats in Washington from other countries have also acknowledged hearing the rumors, but have said they have no confirmation. But some signs in recent weeks have led analysts in South Korea to speculate that Mr. Kim may be engineering a reshuffle or a purge of his negotiating team in the wake of the summit meeting, held in February in Hanoi, Vietnam. The meeting was widely seen as a huge embarrassment for Mr. Kim, who is supposedly seen as infallible in his totalitarian state. On Thursday, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, carried a commentary warning against “anti-party, anti-revolutionary acts” of officials who “pretend to work for the supreme leader in his presence but secretly harbor other dreams behind his back.” …… Chosun Ilbo, the South Korean newspaper, reported Friday that Kim Yong-chol, a senior Workers’ Party vice chairman who visited the White House as the main point man for diplomacy with the United States, had also been purged, sentenced to forced labor in a remote northern province. Also sent to a prison camp was Kim Song-hye, a senior female nuclear negotiator who teamed up with Kim Hyok-chol in working-level negotiations ahead of the Kim-Trump summit, the South Korean newspaper said. North Korea even sent a summit translator to a prison camp for committing a translation mistake, it said. During the Hanoi summit meeting, Mr. Kim demanded that Mr. Trump lift the most painful international sanctions against his country in return for partially dismantling his country’s nuclear weapons facilities. The meeting collapsed when Mr. Trump rejected the proposal, insisting on a quick and comprehensive rollback of the North’s entire weapons of mass destruction program before lifting sanctions. ……… Jung Chang-hyun, head of the Korean Peace and Economy Institute, a research group affiliated with South Korea’s Moneytoday news media group, said he had heard that four North Korean Foreign Ministry officials were executed by firing squad around March, not because of the breakdown of the Hanoi summit meeting, but rather for a separate corruption scandal. …….https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/north-korea-envoy-execution.html |
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North Korea warns that nuclear talks “will never be resumed” if USA continues ‘hostile acts’
 North Korea vows ‘fiercer’ response, end to nuclear talks if U.S. continues ‘hostile acts’, Japan Times, BY JESSE JOHNSON, STAFF WRITER, MAY 24, 2019
North Korea said Friday that nuclear talks with the United States “will never be resumed” unless Washington halts what Pyongyang said were “hostile acts” and demands of “unilateral disarmament,” warning of a “fiercer” response if this continues. In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman delivered Pyongyang’s latest warning to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s failed summit with leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in February. “We hereby make it clear once again that the United States would not be able to move us even an inch with the device it is now weighing in its mind, and the further its mistrust and hostile acts towards the DPRK grow, the fiercer our reaction will be,” the spokesman said, using the acronym for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Unless the United States puts aside the current method of calculation and comes forward with a new method of calculation, the DPRK-U.S. dialogue will never be resumed and by extension, the prospect for resolving the nuclear issue will be much gloomy,” the spokesman said. The Hanoi talks, the second summit between Trump and Kim, collapsed without a deal due to large differences over the scope of North Korea’s denuclearization and potential sanctions relief by the U.S. Reuters reported in March that Trump had passed Kim a note bluntly calling for North Korea to surrender all its nuclear weapons and fuel, a demand he could not abide by…….. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/24/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/north-korea-vows-fiercer-response-end-nuclear-talks-u-s-continues-hostile-acts/#.XOhfUxYzbGg |
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The US demanded the closure of five atomic facilities during the Hanoi summit, but Kim offered only two
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Trump clarifies nuclear gulf between US, North Korea The US demanded the closure of five atomic facilities during the Hanoi summit, but Kim offered only two, Asia Times, By ANDREW SALMON 22 May 19, President Donald Trump, speaking to US broadcaster Fox News on Sunday evening, said Washington had sought, during a February summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to shutter five nuclear sites, but Pyongyang was only willing to close two. |
Trump and Kim “in love”, but have few options now that discussions have collapsed
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Trump and Kim’s Cozy Relationship Makes Nuclear Talks Tougher The leaders, who “fell in love” during their first summit, have few options now that discussions have collapsed. Bloomberg, By Youkyung Lee, 20 May19,Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un often explain their surprisingly warm relationship in the language of romance. They “ fell in love” during the first-ever summit between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader in Singapore last year, Trump said. A top North Korean diplomat similarly describes the chemistry between the two leaders as “mysteriously wonderful.”
Since the breakup of the most recent round of talks in Hanoi in February, however, Kim has registered his displeasure not as a lover scorned, but as a dictator at the helm of an increasingly advanced nuclear arsenal. Over one week in May, he personally oversaw the trials of at least two short-range ballistic missiles capable of striking all of South Korea, where some 28,500 U.S. troops are based. The back-to-back launches broke an almost 17-month pause in major weapons testing and likely violated United Nations resolutions banning North Korea from firing ballistic missiles—but crucially, it didn’t violate Kim’s pledge to Trump to halt testing of long-range missiles that could strike the continental U.S. The act was both aggressive and subtle, showing the U.S. that North Korea was willing to play ball but refused to be played. In securing the unprecedented meeting with Trump and entering direct negotiations with the U.S. president, Kim left himself few options if the conversations were to go poorly. The U.S. has been in a similar position since Trump tweeted just after the Singapore meeting that North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat.” Both leaders must now walk a delicate line to save face and avoid what neither of them wants: nuclear war. Kim’s primary goal going into the Hanoi summit was considerably more mundane. He was seeking to make North Korea a normal country in the eyes of the world and to remove sanctions that are crushing the economy and stoking popular unrest. According to the UN, its 2018 harvest was the worst in a decade, leaving 40 percent of the population in need of food assistance. …….. Current South Korean President Moon Jae-in is caught between the two leaders. Seoul is within the range of both missiles fired in early May, and Moon doesn’t want to disrupt his own fragile relationship with Kim by appearing to side with Trump. In his speech, Kim urged Moon to stop being an “officious mediator,” using a Korean slang term—ojirap—that’s rarely used by public figures in official settings and almost never by a younger person referring to an elder. The South Korean government “must defend the interest of the nation,” Kim said. Moon helped broker the first summit between Trump and Kim, in a pair of dramatic meetings with the North Korean leader on the Koreas’ militarized border, and is now pushing for a third by appealing to common human decency. …… The second missile test, on May 9, occurred while Trump’s top nuclear envoy, Stephen Biegun, was in Seoul to meet with South Korean officials. There’s been no indication that the U.S. is willing to accept what many North Korea watchers agree is Kim’s true goal: admission into the exclusive club of accepted nuclear-armed states. ………. The more time passes, the more sophisticated Kim’s arsenal becomes, shrinking Trump’s margin of error in responding to threats and increasing the danger of miscalculation. There’s also the risk that Trump and Kim learn they’re not as close as they thought they were. …. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/trump-and-kim-got-too-serious-too-fast-in-nuclear-discussions |
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