Behind warnings from Pyongyang
By Tong Kim
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Last week, the North's first vice foreign minister, Kim Kye-gwan, threatened to cancel the scheduled U.S.-North Korea summit for June 12 in Singapore, “if the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment.”
Why did Pyongyang's most experienced and shrewd strategic negotiator, suddenly show up to raise a red flag to the much-anticipated Kim Jong-un's meeting with Trump?
Pyongyang's threat to cancel the summit seems to have been paid off instantly when President Trump said he was not considering “a Libyan model at all.”
Trump said, “If we have a deal, I think Kim Jong-un will be very, very happy,” and he will have strong protections to rule his country.
North Korea has not killed the summit. Trump seems to want it more than Kim Jong-un does, for his political interests. This column refutes a view that the latest move by the North is because of a need to address the North Korean military's concerns with Kim Jong-un's change in the North's opening to the South and the U.S.
We don't know, but we suspect there must be continuing discussions with the North Koreans with respect to what the U.S. wants from the North and what the North wants from the U.S. They may even be negotiating a possible modality and scope of agreement with some clear measures of implementation, verification and timelines.
The North's warning is saying one thing for sure. Whatever negotiation that may be underway to lay groundwork for the summit is not going well. However, what the North does not want is clear. Vice Minister Kim reset the North's negotiating posture back on its tough norm:
(1) They are not coming to the summit to surrender their strategic weapons. They are willing to discuss a denuclearized Korean Peninsula under “the preconditions of an end to anti-DPRK hostile policy and nuclear threats and blackmail by the U.S.”
(2) However, they want to negotiate a mutually acceptable path to denuclearization (Kim Jong-un met with Chinese President Xi Jinping twice and expressed his preference for a phased approach with synchronized measures ― of action for action ― and Xi Jinping supports it).
(3) The North does not accept the Libyan model. They do not like U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton.
(4) They want Trump to rein in him and other hawks who do not treat them as an equal party to dialogue. Trump has already done it to a degree. The White House spokesperson said it will be a Trump model.
(5) They don't have great expectations for economic aid from U.S. businesses that Pompeo has talked about. They have heard that from previous administrations.
(6) The North does not like the term complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID). The U.S. failed to include the term in the Sept. 19 statement of the six-party talks in 2005, due to the North's opposition, saying “We are not a defeated party in war.”
In the meantime, there was a misunderstanding or miscalculation that Kim Jong-un would give away his nuclear weapons and missiles completely in advance of corresponding measures from the U.S. Kim Kye-gwan used to tell his American negotiators: “We don't trust each other. In a one-on-one gun fight, both should lay down their guns simultaneously. If we disarm ourselves first, how can we trust that you would not shoot us?”
In Washington, preparations for Trump's meeting were portrayed as proceeding well. We heard the North will be destroying its nuclear test sites. Pompeo said the U.S. will assist the North to develop its economy on the level of the South.
We watched the arrival of three American detainees from the North being met by the president and the vice president at about 2:45 a.m. in the morning at a military airbase near Washington, D.C. We read President Trump's upbeat tweets for the upcoming summit.
We also heard about Bolton's demand for a Libyan model to apply on North Korea, with no rewards until after the implementation of a complete, total denuclearization of North Korea. Bolton said the North should also eliminate its chemical and biological weapons as well.
Bolton suggested shipment of all dismantled North Korean nuclear weapons and fissile materials to Oak Ridge, Tennessee as was the case of disposition of Libya's nuclear program. Bolton was not helpful to the North.
A successful U.S.-North Korea summit is difficult, but still possible.
Tong Kim (tong.kim8@yahoo.com) is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies.