Will third US-NK summit be possible?
People watch a TV news program reporting about North Korea with file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, April 13, 2019. Yonhap
By Kim Yoo-chul
By Kim Yoo-chul
President Moon Jae-in is finding it more difficult to play the role of “facilitator” in the North Korea denuclearization talks after the failed Washington-Pyongyang summit in Hanoi.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he is interested in holding another summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. Upon consultations with Trump, Moon may send a special envoy to Pyongyang soon for what would be his fourth meeting with Kim.
This time, the key point is how Moon mediates narrowing the differences between the U.S. and the North over the definition of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” according to experts.
In Hanoi, the United States and North Korea misunderstood each other's definition of “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and the end-state of the nuclear discussions.
“While Seoul and Washington agree on the preferred end state of a fully denuclearized North Korea, they, including North Korea, still differ in how that goal should be finally achieved. This is what President Moon has to focus on,” said Lee Ki-dong, a senior North Korea expert at the Institute for National Security Strategy.
For Washington, building trust and then changing its relationship with North Korea is part of the process, but Seoul is focusing more on a peace agreement to reduce tensions, according to David Maxwell, an expert on security issues on the Korean Peninsula at the Foundation for Defense for Democracies in Washington.
Previous multiple summits between the leaders of Koreas and the United States and North Korea produced statements calling for “the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” rather than the denuclearization of North Korea. But the White House referred to “denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,” the North's official state name.
Top U.S. government officials and the intelligence community made clear Washington defines “denuclearization” as the verifiable dismantlement of the North's nuclear weapons program and all its means of production, plus a complete end to the North's ballistic missile, chemical and biological weapons programs.
The North Korean leader Kim was presented with “by the end of this year” as a deadline for advancing nuclear negotiations between the two countries. Kim also asked Moon to be a “player” in the nuclear talks not a “facilitator” or “mediator.”
“As the ball has been passed to the South Korean court, Moon would have to take a role for agreements on 'comprehensive but specific goals' of the nuclear dialogue at the next Trump-Kim summit,” said Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong University.
President Donald Trump meets with President Moon Jae-in in the Oval Office of the White House, April 11, 2019, in Washington. AP-Yonhap
In an earlier Twitter post, Trump said North Korea has great potential to become an economic powerhouse and insisted he had ordered the withdrawal of additional sanctions. But from the North Korean perspective, these comments and demands have “nothing to do with easing some economic sanctions” because they were vague with nothing concrete.
“The North still questions the U.S.'s willingness to provide reciprocal measures and how much the regime will have to abandon in exchange. It's a matter of trust,” said Yang Moo-jin, a North Korean expert in Seoul.
“What President Moon has to tell Kim is why introducing a set of comprehensive rather specific plans for its nuclear disarmament matters to advance the Singapore summit goals,” Park from Handong University said.
“Regardless of tough discussions that President Moon and Trump most likely had about how to define denuclearization and where to ease up on sanctions, if they ease up at all, if you take a step back, this is a great signal to Kim Jong-un,” Jean Lee, a North Korean expert at the Wilson Center said in a recent radio interview.
North Korea earlier announced a plan to completely dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear complex under the eyes of a United Nations-led nuclear watchdog and U.S. experts, and maintaining its testing moratorium.
Key topics that will be touched on at any new inter-Korean summit may include setting up a timeline for handing over a list of outstanding North Korean nuclear warheads, verification and dismantlement of its nuclear inventory and other fissile materials, and reporting undeclared nuclear facilities.
Personal diplomacy
Trump has signaled an openness to “various smaller deals” with Kim. Experts say it's unclear how much leverage Moon would have in a fourth inter-Korean summit on clear concessions from Washington on sanctions relief that could satisfy Kim.
Kim committed to a lasting peace on the peninsula at his previous summits with Moon and Trump, though critics say these agreements were vaguely-worded.
But experts say as long as such ambiguity in definitions of denuclearization works together with possible corresponding steps under a top down or personal diplomacy framework there will not be a dead-end to the nuclear negotiations.
Moon Chung-in, presidential adviser on inter-Korean affairs and diplomacy, said holding a trilateral summit between Moon, Trump and Kim in May, at the earliest, was the “best scenario” in addressing the issue. Trump plans to visit the Japanese cities of Osaka and Tokyo in May and June.
“A mechanism for trilateral discussions between Kim, Moon and Trump was revived on Moon's recent trip to Washington D.C. Trump told Moon he wanted to be debriefed about the outcome of any upcoming inter-Korean summit,” presidential adviser Moon said at a recent forum.