NK presses US for concessions
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gets out of his car for a ceremony upon his departure from Russia, outside the railway station in the far-eastern Russian port of Vladivostok, April 26. AFP-Yonhap
By Kim Yoo-chul
Kim Jong-un departs Vladivostok Friday afternoon
By Kim Yoo-chul
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is pressing the United States, again, asking Washington to provide Pyongyang with such incentives as security guarantees and sanctions relief as prerequisites in advancing nuclear dialogue, political analysts in Seoul said, Friday.
At his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un accused Washington of acting in “bad faith” at their recent talks in Hanoi, Vietnam, the North's state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
“Peace and security will entirely depend on Washington's future attitude. The situation on the peninsula and region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point,” the KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
The remarks are interpreted as the North's apparent pressure on the United States to flexibly accept its demands for economic sanctions easing by lessening the degree of Washington's “maximum pressure” campaign.
“In the beginning of the denuclearization talks, Moscow was eager to actively step into the process as the North was looking a lot more to China as a serious backer. Kim Jong-un is hoping to make the nuclear talks even more problematic by bringing Russia to the negotiating table,” said Kim Seung-chae, a politics professor at Seoul's Korea University.
Kim Jong-un officially invited the Russian leader to Pyongyang at a “convenient time” and Putin accepted, KCNA said.
“Given the quite warming personal relationship between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, there are some areas where the United States and Russia could engage in the nuclear dialogue. With economic blessings from Russia, Kim wants to send a message to Trump that his regime is ready for financial assistance from Moscow,” a high-ranking diplomatic source told The Korea Times by telephone.
“The Kim-Putin summit also failed to yield a major breakthrough. All major stakeholders in the nuclear dialogue are in the process of narrowing their differences before finding common ground, which I believe will be time consuming,” the source said.
Members of the North Korean delegation prepare Kim Jong-un's train for departure at the railway station in the Russian Far East port city of Vladivostok on April 26. AFP-Yonhap
In Hanoi, the North Korean leader asked Trump to lift sanctions that affect only the lives of North Korean citizens in exchange for dismantling its major Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Trump didn't accept the request, asking Kim to present more concrete and detailed measures to “completely dismantle” its nuclear ability including submitting plans to scrap undisclosed nuclear sites and fissile materials. A month later, President Moon Jae-in flew to Washington for his summit with Trump to revive the momentum for the nuclear dialogue.
Trump signaled his openness to pursuing a “step-by-step” approach in advancing the North's denuclearization talks by offering limited sanctions relief such as the resumption of some humanitarian-related assistance. Kim responded he will wait “till the end of this year” for the United States to change its mind.
“One key takeaway we have to focus at the Putin-Kim summit was Russia has been consistently calling for the sanctions to be lifted. It was highly likely Kim Jong-un agreed with Putin to extend the visa status of North Korean workers working in Russia, as labor is one of the North's key sources of cash,” said Kim Kyung-min, a politics professor at Seoul's Hanyang University.
Both Russia and North Korea agreed to take “positive measures” in several fields to further cooperate in trade and economy, according to the KCNA.
Putin said any security or economic guarantees from Washington for the North would need to be supported by other nations involved in the earlier nuclear six-party talks.
President Moon said he is hoping to hold another summit with Kim “at the earliest possible date” for candid discussions to make a third Trump-Kim summit happen.
Kim Jong-un departed Vladivostok, Friday afternoon, using his green-and-yellow armored train. Some prescheduled events were canceled.