{"id":39529,"date":"2018-05-24T14:30:56","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T04:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39529"},"modified":"2018-05-24T14:26:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T04:26:47","slug":"north-korean-action-for-us-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korean-action-for-us-words\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean action for US words?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Just days ago, the planned summit in Singapore between US\u00a0President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong\u2011un seemed to be hanging by a thread. Talks are still on track, but the North Koreans have expressed second thoughts, owing to statements from the Trump administration suggesting that the North would be expected to denuclearise in exchange for the mere promise of loosened sanctions.<\/p>\n

The North Koreans are also concerned about comments made by Trump\u2019s national security advisor, John Bolton, an old nemesis whom the North\u2014never lost for insulting words\u2014once called<\/a> \u2018human scum\u2019. In recent weeks, Bolton has suggested that talks with North Korea could follow what he calls the \u2018Libya model\u2019\u2014a facile shorthand for a country that simply surrenders its nuclear program for little in return.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Bolton\u2019s cartoonish retelling, former Libyan leader Muammar el\u2011Qaddafi actually negotiated quietly with the Europeans and the United States for years before surrendering his weapons in\u00a02003, and he received security commitments and assistance in exchange. But the even larger problem with Bolton\u2019s message was that, to the rest of the world, the \u2018Libya model\u2019 could just as well refer to the 2011\u00a0NATO air campaign that allowed rebels to topple Qaddafi\u2019s regime. The NATO intervention ended with Qaddafi\u2019s corpse being dragged through the streets of Sirte as the world\u2014and particularly the North Koreans\u2014looked on.<\/p>\n

Whatever Bolton meant, Trump quickly brushed his statements aside, insisting<\/a> that, \u2018The \u201cLibya model\u201d isn\u2019t a model that we have at all, when we\u2019re thinking of North Korea.\u2019 Still, it remains to be seen what Trump actually does have in mind for the summit. He has decried<\/a> his predecessors for being \u2018played like a fiddle\u2019 when offering North Korea sanctions relief in the past. And he has wisely ruled out the reduction of US\u00a0troops in South Korea as an interim gesture. But how Trump intends to convince the Kim regime to abandon its fundamental identity as a nuclear state is still an open question.<\/p>\n

One of the Trump administration\u2019s negotiating tactics so far has been to offer friendship and warm words, the likes of which have never before been uttered by US\u00a0officials to North Korean leaders.<\/p>\n

When I represented George W. Bush\u2019s administration in the six-party talks in\u00a02005, I had written instructions not to participate in any dinners or other social engagements with the North Koreans, nor even to raise a glass in any toast that included North Korean representatives. Interactions with North Korean officials were to be conducted in the presence of Chinese chaperones. But this policy of forced pettiness was more or less abandoned during later rounds of those talks, and it is good to see that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has not revived it in his encounters with the North Koreans thus far.<\/p>\n

At the summit, the Trump administration will likely hold out the prospect of a peace agreement to end the 1950\u20131953 Korean War and recognise the North Korean state. This blueprint is not new. The September\u00a02005 joint statement<\/a> for the six-party talks stated specifically that, \u2018The directly related parties [read: not Russia or Japan] will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula\u2019, and that North Korea and the\u00a0US would work \u2018to respect each other\u2019s sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalise their relations\u2019.<\/p>\n

At that time, China\u2014pointing to its own experience with the\u00a0US\u2014proposed that the\u00a0US and North Korea each open a diplomatic office in the other\u2019s capital. And while it took some doing, I did receive authorisation from the Bush administration to make this offer to the North Koreans. They replied all too quickly with a \u2018No, thank you.\u2019 Similarly, they showed no interest in following through on a peace treaty. As a member of our interagency delegation noted, \u2018They seem to be interested in things until they are not.\u2019<\/p>\n

Of course, we know what the North Koreans were really interested in. As a result of sanctions, the regime desperately needed heavy fuel for heating purposes. The\u00a0US and other parties to the talks agreed to deliver fuel shipments in exchange for incremental steps toward denuclearisation, including the disabling of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. In the diplomatic parlance of the time, this was referred to as \u2018action for action\u2019.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the entire six-party process foundered on the issue of verification, when the North refused to grant inspectors access to sites that were not included in its earlier declaration of nuclear facilities. As the summit approaches, Trump and his advisers will need to determine if the North Koreans view the verification issue any differently than they did 10\u00a0years ago.<\/p>\n

If Trump can secure an agreement based on \u2018action for words\u2019, he really will have demonstrated the \u2018art of the deal\u2019. But the question remains: are the North Koreans serious?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just days ago, the planned summit in Singapore between US\u00a0President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong\u2011un seemed to be hanging by a thread. Talks are still on track, but the North Koreans have …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":39530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[86,2070],"class_list":["post-39529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-north-korea","tag-us-foreign-policy","dinkus-trump-kim-summit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNorth Korean action for US words? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korean-action-for-us-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korean action for US words? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just days ago, the planned summit in Singapore between US\u00a0President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong\u2011un seemed to be hanging by a thread. 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