US seems avoiding direct talks with NK
By Kim Rahn
The United States doesn’t seem very interested in having bilateral talks with North Korea during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, analysts here said Tuesday. This is despite South Korea’s efforts to boost the mood for dialogue.
Rather, it is expected to reaffirm its hard-line stance toward the North in South Korea, as the head of the U.S. delegation, Vice President Mike Pence, plans to highlight the North Korean regime’s brutality including human rights violations.
Political experts say such a move implies Washington does not fully agree with Seoul’s dialogue-focused North Korea policy, as it believes the North is seeking to misuse the international sports event to promote its regime while showing no sincerity about talks for denuclearization.
The Voice of America (VOA) reported Tuesday that Pence plans to meet North Korean defectors in Seoul, Friday, before attending the opening ceremony of the Games.
According to the VOA report, a North Korean defector was informed by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul that Pence would have a meeting with five refugees on that day.
Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump also met several escapees from the North at the White House as a means of attacking the Kim Jong-un regime’s dictatorship and oppression of its citizens.
Some other U.S. media reported that together with the North Korean refugees, Pence is also seeking to visit the memorial hall of the sinking of the South Korean Navy frigate Cheonan, an incident in which a North Korean torpedo attack killed 46 South Korean sailors in 2010.
At the opening ceremony, Pence will also be accompanied by the father of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was jailed in North Korea for 17 months and died six days after being returned to the U.S.
Fred Warmbier will be Pence’s designated special guest. “The sight of Warmbier alongside Pence will serve to remind the world of the atrocities that happen in North Korea,” the VOA quoted a White House official as saying.
CNN also reported Pence’s visit would go beyond just cutting ribbons at ceremonies.
“The vice president will take every chance to highlight the reality of what is happening in North Korea despite any of the propaganda tactics you will see the Kim regime attempt in the media in the run-up to the Olympics and during the Olympics,” CNN quoted a White House official as saying Monday.
Saying Pence is concerned about the North “hijacking the messaging around the Olympics,” the official said, “The North Koreans have been master manipulators in the past. It’s a murderous state.”
Pence and other members of the U.S. delegation have so far expressed no intention to talk with Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s nominal head of state whose period of stay in the South will overlap Pence’s.
“The vice president is certainly not seeking a meeting with the North Koreans,” the VOA quoted the official as saying.
It was also reported the U.S. requested the South Korean government to arrange times and seats of Pence and Kim at major events during the Olympics so the two would not encounter each other.
CNN said although the U.S. government publicly supports the ongoing inter-Korean talks about the Games, it is wary of the possibility for North Korea to get economic concessions from South Korea.
Before coming to South Korea, Pence has been in Japan and will have a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today. The two are likely to issue a joint statement to stress the need for maintaining maximum pressure on the North, which they say does not intend to give up its nuclear program despite its current “charm offensive.”