US plans for dismantling North Korea nukes may face resistance
The United States has a plan that would lead to the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs in a year, President Donald Trump‘s national security adviser said, although U.S. intelligence reported signs that Pyongyang doesn’t intend to fully give up its arsenal. John Bolton said top U.S. diplomat Mike Pompeo will be discussing that plan with North Korea in the near future. Bolton added that it would be to the North’s advantage to cooperate to see sanctions lifted quickly and aid from South Korea and Japan start to flow. The State Department said the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, who led policy negotiations with North Korea before the summit, traveled to the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas on Sunday to resume talks on next steps on implementing the joint declaration Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed in Singapore. In that summit declaration, the North committed “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The short joint statement did not define how that would be achieved or say when the process would begin or how long it might take. “Our goal remains the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK, as agreed to by Chairman Kim in Singapore,” the department said Monday. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Bolton’s remarks Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” presented a very ambitious timeline for North Korea to fulfill that commitment. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters three weeks ago that the U.S. wants North Korea to take “major” nuclear disarmament steps within the next two years — before the end of Trump’s first term in January 2021. Despite Trump’s rosy post-summit declaration that the North no longer poses a nuclear threat, Washington and Pyongyang have yet to negotiate the terms under which it would relinquish the weapons that it developed over decades to deter the U.S. Doubts over North Korea’s intentions have deepened amid reports that it is continuing to produce fissile material for weapons. The Washington Post on Saturday cited unnamed U.S. intelligence officials as concluding that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile. Evidence collected since the June 12 summit in Singapore points to preparations to deceive the U.S. about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea’s arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, according to the report. It said the findings support a new, previously undisclosed Defense Intelligence Agency estimate that North Korea is unlikely to denuclearize. Some aspects of the new intelligence were reported on Friday by NBC News. A U.S. official told The Associated Press that the Post’s report was accurate and that the assessment reflected the consistent view across U.S. government agencies for the past several weeks. The official was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and requested anonymity. Bolton on Sunday declined to comment on intelligence matters. He said the administration was well-aware of North Korea’s track record over the decades in dragging out negotiations with the U.S. to continue weapons development. “We have developed a program. I’m sure that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be discussing this with the North Koreans in the near future about really how to dismantle all of their WMD and ballistic missile programs in a year,” Bolton said. “If they have the strategic decision already made to do that, and they’re cooperative, we can move very quickly,” he added. He said the one-year program the U.S. is proposing would cover all the North’s chemical and biological weapons, nuclear programs and ballistic missiles. Even if North Korea is willing to cooperate, dismantling its secretive weapons of mass destruction programs, believed to encompass dozens of sites, will be tough. Stanford University academics, including nuclear physicist Siegfried Hecker, a leading expert on the North’s nuclear program, have proposed a 10-year roadmap for that task; others say it could take less time. Pompeo has already visited Pyongyang twice since April to meet with Kim — the first time when he was still director of the CIA — and there are discussions about a possible third trip to North Korea late next week but such a visit has not yet been confirmed. Trump reiterated in an interview broadcast Sunday that he thinks Kim is serious about denuclearization. “I made a deal with him. I shook hands with him. I really believe he means it,” the president said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.” Trump defended his decision to suspend “war games” with close ally South Korea — a significant concession to North Korea, which so far has suspended nuclear and missile tests and destroyed tunnels at its nuclear test site but not taken further concrete steps to denuclearize. “Now we’re saving a lot of money,” Trump said of the cancellation of large-scale military drills that involve flights of U.S. bombers from the Pacific U.S. territory of Guam. Pressure will now be on Pompeo to make progress in negotiations with North Korea to turn the summit declaration into concrete action. He spoke with the foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea in recent days about the situation with the North, according to the State Department, which has declined to comment on any upcoming travel. Pompeo postponed plans to meet with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and their counterparts from India on July 6, citing unavoidable circumstances, which has fueled speculation he will make a third trip to Pyongyang. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Donald Trump to leave summit early after meeting with Kim Jong Un
In the latest twist in the drama-filled nuclear talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump announced on the eve of their historic meeting that he will be leaving Singapore early because the nuclear negotiations have moved “more quickly than expected.” That was before the two had even met, and it was not clear whether it was good news or not. No details were given on any possible progress in preliminary talks between aides at the talks. And the abrupt change in schedule came shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had seemed to lower expectations for the meeting, which Trump had earlier predicted could potentially yield an on-the-spot end to the Korean War. Instead, Pompeo suggested the summit, while historic, might yield little in the way of concrete success other than to pave the way for more meetings in the future. On the day before the meeting, weeks of preparation appeared to pick up the pace, with U.S. and North Korean officials meeting throughout Monday at a Singapore hotel. Trump spoke only briefly in public, forecasting a “nice” outcome for the summit during a meeting with Singapore’s prime minister. Kim spent the day mostly out of view — until he left his hotel for a late-night tour of Singapore sights, including the Flower Dome, billed as the world’s biggest glass greenhouse. Trump’s early departure will be second from a summit in just a few days. The sudden change in schedule added to a dizzying few days for foreign policy for Trump, who shocked U.S. allies over the weekend when he used a meeting of the Group of 7 industrialized economies in Canada to alienate America’s closest friends in the West. Lashing out over trade practices, he lobbed insults at the G-7 host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He left early, and as he flew to Singapore, he tweeted that he was yanking the U.S. out of the traditional group statement. As Trump was trying to build a bridge with Kim, he was smashing longtime alliances with Western allies with his abrasive performance at the G-7. He continued to tweet angrily at Trudeau from Singapore, saying Monday “Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal.” Trump advisers cast his actions as a show of strength before the Kim meeting. Economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CBS News in Washington that “Kim must not see American weakness.” Trump, after the first-ever meeting between U.S. and North Korean leaders, had been scheduled to fly back to Washington on Wednesday morning after spending Tuesday with Kim in Singapore. But on the eve of the summit, he altered his schedule, opting to return at about 8 p.m. on Tuesday after a full day of meetings with Kim — almost 15 hours earlier than previously anticipated. “The discussions between the United States and North Korea are ongoing and have moved more quickly than expected,” the White House said in a statement. U.S. and North Korean officials have been holding preliminary meetings in the run-up to the Tuesday summit. In recent days, Trump had suggested the meeting could last days, potentially even resulting in a nuclear deal. But U.S. officials have since avoided such lofty declarations. Abbreviating the meeting to a single day could make it easier to cast the summit as an early, symbolic opening, rather than a substantive negotiation in which a lack of tangible progress would suggest failure on the part of the negotiators. The White House said the summit was to kick off at 9 a.m. Tuesday. After greeting each other — an image sure to be devoured around the world — the two leaders planned to sit for a one-on-one meeting that a U.S. official said could last up to two hours, with only translators joining them. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the plans and insisted on anonymity. The daylong summit will also include a working lunch and a larger meeting involving aides to both leaders, the White House said. On the U.S. side, Trump was to be joined by Pompeo, chief of staff John Kelly, national security adviser John Bolton and U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim, along with a few others. After concluding the summit, Trump planned to speak to reporters in Singapore before flying home, the White House said. Pompeo, addressing reporters ahead of the summit, said the U.S. was prepared to take action to provide North Korea with “sufficient certainty” that denuclearization “is not something that ends badly for them.” He would not say whether that included the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, but stressed the context of the discussions was “radically different than ever before.” “I can only say this,” Pompeo said. “We are prepared to take what will be security assurances that are different, unique, than America’s been willing to provide previously.” In Singapore, the island city-state hosting the summit, the sense of anticipation was palpable, with people lining spotless streets Monday waving cellphones as Trump headed to meet Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. As Trump and Lee sat down for a working lunch at the Istana house, Trump sounded optimistic, telling Lee, “we’ve got a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely.” Trump also called the leaders of South Korea and Japan in advance of the summit, Pompeo said. Meanwhile, U.S. and North Korean officials huddled at a hotel Monday ahead of the sit-down aimed at resolving a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. Delegates were outlining specific goals for what Trump and Kim should try to accomplish and multiple scenarios for how key issues can be resolved, an official briefed on the discussions said. The meetings also served as an ice breaker of sorts as the teams worked to get better acquainted after decades of minimal U.S.-North Korea contact. Trump and Kim arrived in Singapore on Sunday, both staying at luxurious and heavily guarded hotels less than half a mile
Kim Jong Un could give up ICBMs but keep some nuclear forces
After years of effort to develop nuclear missiles that can target the U.S. mainland, is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un really ready to pack them away in a deal with President Donald Trump? Perhaps, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean Pyongyang is abandoning its nuclear ambitions entirely. Tuesday’s meeting in Singapore between Kim and Trump comes after a sharp turn in North Korea’s diplomacy, from rebuffing proposals for dialogue last year to embracing and even initiating them this year. The change may reflect a new thinking about its nuclear deterrence strategy — and how best to secure the ultimate goal of protecting Kim’s rule. A look at how Kim’s appetite for talks swung amid the North’s ups and downs in weapons development and what that says about how he might approach his negotiations with Trump: ___ TESTS AND TALKS North Korea’s attitude toward dialogue in the past two years has seemed to shift with setbacks or progress in its weapons tests. Even after starting a rapid process of weapons development following a nuclear test in January 2016, Pyongyang constantly invited rivals to talks that year. It proposed military meetings with Seoul to reduce tensions and indicated it could suspend its nuclear and missile tests if the U.S.-South Korean military drills were dialed back. Washington and Seoul demurred, saying Pyongyang first must show genuine intent to denuclearize. At the time, North Korea’s quest for a credible nuclear deterrent against the U.S. was troubled. The military conducted eight tests of its “Musudan” intermediate-range missile in 2016, but only one of those launches was seen as successful. The country’s path toward an intercontinental-range ballistic missile appeared cut off. North Korea’s stance on dialogue changed dramatically, though, following the successful test of a new rocket engine in March 2017, which the country hailed as a significant breakthrough. The engine, believed to be a variant of the Russian-designed RD-250, powered a successful May flight of a new intermediate-range missile, the Hwasong-12, reopening the path to an ICBM. That was followed in July by two successful tests of an ICBM, the Hwasong-14. Pyongyang’s demands for talks disappeared. Proposals to meet from a new liberal government in Seoul were ignored. Determined to test its weapons in operational conditions, the North flew two Hwasong-12s over Japan and threatened to fire them toward Guam, a U.S. military hub. The North’s state media brought up President Richard Nixon’s outreach to Beijing in the 1970s following a Chinese test of a thermonuclear bomb, saying it was likewise inevitable that Washington will accept North Korea as a nuclear power and take steps to normalize ties. Kim talked of reaching a military “equilibrium” with the U.S. By all signs, he was fully committed to completing an ICBM program he intended to keep. ___ THE DETERRENCE GAME Kim’s turn toward diplomacy this year suggests he may have concluded the nuclear deterrence strategy was failing, some analysts say. After a November test of a larger ICBM, the Hwasong-15, Kim proclaimed his nuclear force as complete, but his announcement may have been more politically motivated than an assessment of capability. Although the Hwasong-15 displayed a greater range than the Hwasong-14, there was no clear sign the North had made meaningful progress in the technology needed to ensure that a warhead would survive the harsh conditions of atmospheric re-entry. New U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy reports released in December and January respectively also seemed to reduce the credibility of Kim’s deterrence plans, said Hwang Ildo, a professor at Seoul’s Korea National Diplomatic Academy. In the documents, the U.S. assesses it could sufficiently defend against the small number of North Korean ICBMs — believed to be about 10 or fewer — with its 44 ground-based interceptors deployed in Alaska. Missiles fired from North Korea would have to pass Alaska to reach the U.S. mainland. Experts are divided on whether the interceptors, which Washington plans to deploy in larger numbers soon, can be counted on to destroy incoming warheads. However, Hwang said, real capability doesn’t matter as much as Trump believing that the system works, which reduces the bargaining power of the ICBMs. Kim can’t be the Mao Zedong to Trump’s Nixon if the U.S. sees his weapons as containable. With North Korea’s limited resources, as well as the threat of a pre-emptive U.S. attack, it’s difficult for the North to mass produce enough ICBMs to overwhelm the interceptors in Alaska. Rather than prolonging his nation’s economic suffering, Kim may have concluded it would be better to deal away his ICBMs at the cusp of operational capability, especially when it was no longer clear the missiles would guarantee his survival. “North Korea always tries to maintain flexibility and increase its options from step to step,” Hwang said. ___ A PAKISTANI MODEL? What never changes for North Korea is that the survival of the Kim regime comes first. Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Korea University, said Kim is probably modeling a nuclear future after Pakistan, which began building a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s to deter India. Pakistan is now estimated to have more than 100 warheads that are deliverable by short- and medium-range weapons and aircraft. Kim may be seeking a deal where he gives up his ICBMs but keeps his shorter-range arsenal, which may satisfy Trump but drive a wedge between Washington and its Asian allies, Seoul and Tokyo. In drills with shorter-range weapons in 2016, the North demonstrated the potential to carry out nuclear attacks on South Korean ports and U.S. military facilities in Japan. In negotiations, Kim may try to exclude submarine technologies from a freeze or verification process to leave open a path toward sub-launched ballistic missile systems, Hwang said. Then, if diplomacy fails and Kim goes back to building nuclear weapons, the systems would expand their reach and provide a second-strike capability to retaliate if North Korea’s land-based launch sites are destroyed. North Korea successfully tested a submarine-launched missile that flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) in
Donald Trump arrives in Singapore for Tuesday’s summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
President Donald Trump arrives in Singapore for Tuesday’s summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Donald Trump hints at longer path for North Korea to de-nuke
Even by President Donald Trump’s mercurial standards, it was a quick shift. A week after abruptly canceling his historic summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump announced it was back on — and in the process appeared to accede to a key North Korean demand. Beyond the symbolism of Friday’s Oval Office meeting between Trump and Kim Yong Chol — the most senior North Korean official to step inside the White House in 18 years — Trump signaled a subtle change in his administration’s approach toward the goal of getting the pariah nation to give up its nuclear weapons. U.S. officials have previously been calling for North Korea to abandon its nukes rapidly, with the expectation of getting benefits afterward in the form of security assurances, sanctions relief and the opportunity to boost its meager economy. But as he spoke to reporters Friday, Trump repeatedly referred to the June 12 summit in Singapore — a first between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea — as the start of a “process,” and said it was likely that more than one meeting would be necessary to bring about his goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. “June 12th, we’ll be in Singapore,” Trump said after his lengthy goodbye with Kim Yong Chol, a former North Korean military intelligence chief, whom he escorted to a black SUV. “It will be a beginning. I don’t say and I’ve never said it happens in one meeting. You’re talking about years of hostility; years of problems; years of, really, hatred between so many different nations. But I think you’re going to have a very positive result in the end.” Trump gave no indication of what kind of timetable he might have in mind for getting North Korea to abandon a weapons program it views as a guarantee for the survival of its authoritarian regime. Still, his comments marked a sea change from the views expressed weeks earlier by his national security adviser John Bolton, who was notably absent from Friday’s meeting. Bolton, who before taking office in April advocated military action against North Korea, had pointed to the disarmament of Libya in 2003 and 2004 in exchange for sanctions relief as a model for a possible deal with North Korea. For the North, that was a deeply provocative comparison, because Libyan autocrat Moammar Gadhafi was killed following U.S.-supported military action in his country about seven years after giving up his fledgling nuclear program. Rather than surrender its program all at once as Gadhafi did, North Korea has repeatedly said it envisions a “progressive and synchronous” approach, where it gets benefits along the way. The latest expression of that came Thursday from Kim Jong Un himself when he met in Pyongyang with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In a dispatch Friday, North Korean state news agency cited Kim saying “he hoped that the DPRK-U.S. relations and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will be solved on a stage-by-stage basis.” DPRK refers to the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. That sounds reminiscent of past U.S. efforts to negotiate North Korea’s disarmament with incentives of aid since the mid-1990s — efforts that have ultimately failed. The Trump administration has often said it can’t afford to repeat those mistakes because of the threat that North Korean nuclear-tipped missiles now pose to the continental U.S. But there’s always been doubt about whether it was realistic to expect instant results — both because of North Korea’s negotiating position and the scale and sophistication of its weapons program. This week, Stanford University experts — including nuclear physicist Siegfried Hecker, who has inspected North Korea atomic facilities firsthand — proposed a denuclearization road map spanning 10 years. They warned that the idea of shipping the North’s nuclear weapons out of the country was “naive and dangerous.” North Korea has shown some goodwill: halting missile tests for six months so far, and last week demolishing key areas of its nuclear test site in front of international journalists. It has also released three American detainees. Now Trump, keen to strike a historic deal with a bitter U.S. adversary, appears eager for rapprochement to work. After meeting Kim Yong Chol, the president said he was putting new sanctions against the North on hold and doesn’t want to use the term “maximum pressure” anymore — referring to his signature policy to isolate Pyongyang economically and diplomatically. That may ease fears of renewed confrontation that fueled fears of war last year. But doubts linger about North Korea’s intentions. By hosting a top official from the North — whose trip to New York and Washington required waiving a travel ban against him — Trump has provided an early public relations victory for an isolated government eager for international recognition. He’s also generated considerable expectations about how the summit can herald a warm relationship between longstanding enemies. Hawks in the U.S. administration may also be concerned that Trump, who often complained during his election campaign about American military burdens overseas, would ultimately agree to a timetable for denuclearization by North Korea in exchange for withdrawing American troops from South Korea — removing a military tripwire to deter aggression by the North. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
North Koreans to meet Donald Trump; deliver letter from leader
A top aide to Kim Jong Un was en route to Washington Friday to hand a letter from the North Korean leader to President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after reporting “good progress” in talks between the two sides to revive an on-again, off-again nuclear summit. “I am confident we are moving in the right direction,” Pompeo told reporters at a news conference in New York after meeting Thursday with former North Korean military intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol. “Our two countries face a pivotal moment in our relationship, and it would be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity go to waste.” He would not say that the summit is a definite go for Singapore on June 12 and could not say if that decision would be made after Trump reads Kim Jong Un’s letter. However, his comments were the most positive from any U.S. official since Trump abruptly canceled the meeting last week after belligerent statements from the North. The two countries, eying the first summit between the U.S. and the North after six decades of hostility, have also been holding negotiations in Singapore and the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. Early Thursday, Trump told reporters “we are doing very well” with North Korea. He added there may even need to be a second or third summit meeting to reach a deal on North Korean denuclearization but still hedged, saying “maybe we’ll have none.” Kim Yong Chol left his hotel in New York City early Friday for the trip to Washington in a convoy of SUVs. He is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the U.S. in 18 years, and his trip to the White House will be a highly symbolic sign of easing tensions after fears of war escalated amid North Korean nuclear and missile tests last year. Pompeo, the former CIA chief who has traveled to North Korea and met with Kim Jong Un twice in the past two months, said he believed the country’s leaders are “contemplating a path forward where they can make a strategic shift, one that their country has not been prepared to make before.” He tweeted from New York: “Good progress today during our meetings” with Kim and his team. Yet he also said at his news conference that difficult work remains including hurdles that may appear to be insurmountable as negotiations progress on the U.S. demand for North Korea’s complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. “We will push forward to test the proposition that we can achieve that outcome,” he said. Pompeo spoke after meeting with Kim Yong Chol for a little more than two hours at the residence of the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The talks had been expected to be held in two sessions, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon, and had not been expected to conclude until 1:30 p.m. Instead, the two men wrapped up at 11:25 a.m. Pompeo said they finished everything they needed to address in the morning session. Immediately afterward, he tweeted that he had had substantive talks on the priorities for the potential summit. Pompeo was accompanied by Andrew Kim, the head of a CIA unit assigned to work on North Korea, and Mark Lambert, the head of the State Department’s Korea desk. “Our secretary of state is having very good meetings,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing on a trip to Texas. He said of the North Koreans, “I believe they will be coming down to Washington on Friday. A letter being delivered to me from Kim Jong Un. It is very important to them.” “It is all a process,” he said of arranging the summit. “Hopefully we will have a meeting on the 12th.” Despite the upbeat messaging in the United States, Kim Jong Un, in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday, complained about the U.S. trying to spread its influence in the region, a comment that may complicate the summit plans. “As we move to adjust to the political situation in the face of U.S. hegemonism, I am willing to exchange detailed and in-depth opinions with your leadership and hope to do so moving forward,” Kim told Sergey Lavrov. North Korea’s flurry of diplomatic activity following an increase in nuclear weapons and missile tests in 2017 suggests that Kim is eager for sanctions relief to build his economy and for the international legitimacy a summit with Trump would provide. But there are lingering doubts on whether he will ever fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he may see as his only guarantee of survival in a region surrounded by enemies. Trump views a summit as a legacy-defining opportunity to make a nuclear deal, but he has left the world guessing since canceling the meeting last week in an open letter to Kim that complained of the North’s “tremendous anger and open hostility.” North Korea’s conciliatory response to that letter appears to have put the summit back on track. Kim Yong Chol is the most senior North Korean visitor to the United States since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok visited Washington in 2000 to meet President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. That was the last time the two sides, which are technically at war, attempted to arrange a leadership summit. It was an effort that ultimately failed as Clinton’s time in office ran out, and relations turned sour again after George W. Bush took office in early 2001 with a tough policy on the North. Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee, was allowed into the United States despite being on a U.S. sanctions list, and North Korean officials are not normally allowed to travel outside the New York area. The North Korean mission at the United Nations did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday, and phone calls were not answered. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Both sides preparing as if U.S. – North Korea summit is a go
Rapid-fire diplomacy played out on two continents in advance of an “expected” summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the strengthening resolve coming after a series of high-risk, high-reward gambits by the two leaders. Officials wouldn’t say that the June 12 Singapore summit was back on, but preparations on both sides of the Pacific proceeded as if it were. Two weeks of hard-nosed negotiating, including a communications blackout by the North and a public cancellation by the U.S., appeared to be paying off as the two sides engaged in their most substantive talks to date about the meeting. Trump tweeted Tuesday that he had a “great team” working on the summit, confirming that top North Korean official Kim Yong Chol was headed to New York for talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In addition, teams of U.S. officials have arrived at the Korean Demilitarized Zone and in Singapore to prepare for the meeting. “Solid response to my letter, thank you!” tweeted Trump. He announced he had decided to “terminate” the summit last week in an open letter to Kim that stressed American military might, but also left the door cracked for future communication. White House officials characterized the letter as a negotiating tactic, designed to bring the North back to the table after a provocative statement, skipped planning talks and ignored phone calls. But aides almost immediately suggested the meeting could still get back on track. And after a suitably conciliatory statement from North Korea, Trump said the same. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that since the letter, “the North Koreans have been engaging” with the U.S. Trump views the meeting as a legacy-defining opportunity to make the nuclear deal that has evaded others, but he pledged to walk away from the meeting if he believed the North wasn’t serious about discussing dismantling its nuclear program. U.S. officials cast the on-again, off-again drama as in keeping with Trump’s deal-making style, and reflective of the technically still-warring leaders testing each other. In his book “The Art of the Deal,” Trump wrote: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have.” After the North’s combative statements, there was debate inside the Trump administration about whether it marked a real turn to belligerence or a feint to see how far Kim Jong Un could push the U.S. in the lead-up to the talks. Trump had mused that Kim’s “attitude” had changed after the North Korean’s surprise visit to China two weeks ago, suggesting China was pushing Kim away from the table. Trump’s letter, the aides said, was designed to pressure the North on the international stage for appearing to have cold feet. White House officials maintain that Trump was hopeful the North was merely negotiating but that he was prepared for the letter to mark the end of the two-month flirtation. Instead, the officials said, it brought both sides to the table with increasing seriousness, as they work through myriad logistical and policy decisions to keep June 12 a viable option for the summit. The flurry of diplomatic activity intensified with Kim Yong Chol’s appearance at the Beijing airport Wednesday. South Korea-based Yonhap News cited diplomatic sources as saying Kim was on an Air China flight that departed in the afternoon, and U.S. officials familiar with planning have said he was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday. Kim is a former military intelligence chief and now a vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee. He will be the highest-level North Korean official to travel to the United States since 2000, when late National Defense Commission First Vice Chairman Jo Myong Rok visited Washington, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said. Pompeo has traveled to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, twice in recent weeks for meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and has said there is a “shared understanding” between the two sides about what they hope to achieve. Meanwhile, a team of American diplomats is holding preparatory discussions with North Korean officials at the DMZ. The group first met with its counterparts Sunday, and was seen leaving a Seoul hotel on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether they went to Panmunjom, a village that straddles the border inside the DMZ. The U.S. officials are led by Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, who formerly was the U.S. ambassador to Seoul and a top negotiator with North Korea in past nuclear talks. It includes senior officials with the National Security Council and the Pentagon. The White House emphasized that it has remained in close contact with South Korean and Japanese officials as preparations for the talks continue. Sanders said Trump will host Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan on June 7 to coordinate their thinking ahead of the summit. Trump hosted South Korean President Moon Jae-in last week. Moon, who has lobbied hard for nuclear negotiations between Trump and Kim Jong Un, held a surprise meeting with the North Korean leader Saturday in an effort to keep the summit alive. South Korean media also reported that a North Korean delegation arrived in Singapore on Monday night, where other U.S. officials, led by White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, are preparing for the summit. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Summit talk turns warmer; Donald Trump says ‘talking to them now’
President Donald Trump on Friday warmly welcomed North Korea’s promising response to his abrupt withdrawal from the potentially historic Singapore summit and said “we’re talking to them now” about putting it back on track. “Everybody plays games,” said Trump, who often boasts about his own negotiating tactics and skill. The president, commenting as he left the White House for a commencement speech, said it was even possible the summit could take place on the originally planned June 12 date. “They very much want to do it, we’d like to do it,” he said. Earlier Friday, in a tweet, he had called the North’s reaction to his letter canceling the summit “warm and productive.” That was far different from his letter Thursday to North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, blaming “tremendous anger and open hostility” by Pyongyang for the U.S. withdrawal. The tone from both sides was warmer on Friday. First, North Korea issued a statement saying it was still “willing to give the U.S. time and opportunities” to reconsider talks “at any time, at any format.” Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan called Trump’s withdrawal “unexpected” and “very regrettable,” and said the cancellation of the talks showed “how grave the status of historically deep-rooted hostile North Korea-U.S. relations is and how urgently a summit should be realized to improve ties.” Then Trump, in his response to that response, said it was “very good news,” and “we will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!” The president’s surprise exit from the planned talks on Thursday had capped weeks of high-stakes brinkmanship between the two unpredictable leaders over nuclear negotiating terms for their unprecedented sit-down. The U.S. announcement came not long after Kim appeared to make good on his promise to demolish his country’s nuclear test site. But it also followed escalating frustration — and newly antagonistic rhetoric — from North Korea over comments from Trump aides about U.S. expectations for the North’s “denuclearization.” The White House has repeatedly offered mixed messages. Hours after releasing his cancellation letter on Thursday, the president declared, “I really believe Kim Jong Un wants to do what’s right.” After that, however, a senior White House official said the North had reneged on its promises ahead of the summit. Trump said from the White House that a “maximum pressure campaign” of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation would continue against North Korea — with which the U.S. is technically still at war — though he added that it was possible the summit could still take place at some point. The senior U.S. official said the North violated a pledge to allow international inspectors to monitor the supposed implosion of the test site. International journalists were present, but the U.S. government can’t verify the site’s destruction. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid overshadowing Trump’s comments Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a staunch ally of Kim Jong Un, said the North Korean leader had in fact done “everything that he had promised in advance, even blowing up the tunnels and shafts” of the site. Putin said of Trump’s cancellation announcement, “In Russia we took this news with regret.” On Friday, North Korea’s vice foreign minister said his country’s “objective and resolve to do our best for the sake of peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and all humankind remain unchanged.” Trump, in his letter to Kim, objected specifically to a statement from a top North Korean Foreign Ministry official. That statement referred to Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy” for his comments on the North and said it was up to the Americans whether they would “meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.” Underscoring the high stakes, Trump said he had spoken with military leaders, as well as Japan and South Korea, and stressed that the United States was prepared for any threat. Still, Trump’s cancellation announcement had appeared to surprise South Korea, which had pushed to keep the summit on track as recently as Tuesday, when President Moon Jae-in met with Trump in the Oval Office and said the “fate and the future” of the Korean Peninsula hinged on the talks. The Blue House said Thursday that it was trying to figure out Trump’s intentions in canceling the summit. Trump, who considers himself a master dealmaker, has confounded aides and allies at every turn of the fateful flirtation with the North. He looked past the warnings of senior aides when he accepted Kim’s invitation to meet back in March. He unveiled the date and the time with characteristic showmanship. And after initially projecting calm in the face of North Korea’s escalating rhetoric, he made a sudden about face, though his letter also waxed poetic about the “wonderful dialogue” emerging between the two leaders. Wrote Trump: “If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write.” Trump’s aides had warned that merely agreeing to the summit had provided Kim with long-sought international legitimacy and, if Trump ultimately backed out, risked fostering the perception that the president was insufficiently committed to diplomatic solutions to the nuclear question. U.S. defense and intelligence officials have repeatedly assessed the North to be on the threshold of having the capability to strike anywhere in the continental U.S. with a nuclear-tipped missile — a capacity that Trump and other U.S. officials have said they would not tolerate. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, testifying Thursday on Capitol Hill, said North Korea had not responded to repeated requests from U.S. officials to discuss logistics for the summit. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the lack of response was an additional reason for Trump’s decision. “We got a lot of dial tones, Senator,” he told committee chairman Bob Corker. A White House team was set to fly to Singapore this weekend to continue logistical planning for the meeting. Trump suggested
Donald Trump calls off historic summit with North Korea
President Donald Trump is canceling the planned June 12 summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, citing the “tremendous anger and open hostility” in a recent statement from North Korea. Trump says in a letter to Kim released Thursday by the White House that based on the statement, he felt it was “inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.” READ President Trump’s letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un canceling their summit. pic.twitter.com/3xXYHwQwTC — The Associated Press (@AP) May 24, 2018 The president says the North Koreans talk about their nuclear capabilities, “but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.” Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Human rights an afterthought ahead of US-North Korea summit
Ahead of a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump’s focus has been on stagecraft, the will-they-or-won’t-they drama and visions of a legacy-defining nuclear deal. The human rights woes of North Koreans have been more of an afterthought. Eager to pull off the historic meeting scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, Trump this week expanded his promised “protections” for Kim should the North Korean leader agree to give up his atomic program. Extending an olive branch, Trump also entertained the idea of opening the spigot of foreign investment to help secure Kim’s rule. “He will be safe. He will be happy. His country will be rich,” Trump declared. “His country will be hardworking and very prosperous.” White House officials say the plight of the North Korean people, who live under one of the world’s most repressive governments, is not currently a priority for the summit. Trump hopes the meeting will yield an agreement by the North to dismantle a nuclear program that could pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland. He’s not the first U.S. leader to concentrate on the nuclear issue. The thinking is that the North Koreans view the raising of human rights as tantamount to advocating regime change and that bringing it up would only make it harder to resolve the weapons program. But the Trump administration’s virtual silence on human rights in North Korea since the president agreed in March to meet Kim, and the effusive thanks from the president for releasing three American prisoners in a goodwill gesture this month, has been striking. It underscores Trump’s intent to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward a more narrow consideration of the national interest. Kim on Thursday made good on his promise to demolish North Korea’s nuclear test site, which was formally closed in a series of huge explosions as a group of foreign journalists looked on. The delicate balancing of U.S. needs and alliances with the promotion of human rights abroad has long bedeviled American leaders. Trump has eschewed the path of his predecessors, who have explicitly declared the promotion of human rights to be in the national interest, even if they have been forced to make Faustian bargains with unsavory actors. The Trump administration appears to be more comfortable skirting the pretense. The president’s national security strategy, released in December, said little on the subject. And it was left to his vice president, Mike Pence, to elevate the issue during a February trip to the region. While Trump has made gestures toward human rights issues in North Korea, those efforts have largely been designed to increase pressure on the country’s government, as when Trump recognized a North Korean defector during his State of the Union address in January and hosted a group of North Korean escapees in the Oval Office. John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, criticized Trump for pledging to preserve Kim’s stranglehold on power. “You shouldn’t be giving assurances to a totalitarian leader,” he said. Sifton added that the North’s nuclear program has been supported by its use of forced labor. A senior White House official said Trump and his advisers see the president’s foreign policy as driven by the interests of the American people rather than matters such as human rights. A second official said Trump and his team believe a human rights push is inherently part of the president’s message that North Korea would see massive foreign investment if it denuclearizes because it would help alleviate the conditions of the North Korean people and could even lead to a more democratic and open system. The officials were not authorized to discuss internal thinking by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Trump is facing calls from Capitol Hill to not ignore Kim’s human rights record during the potential sit-down — and failure to address those concerns could hamstring the congressional approvals likely required for any agreement with Kim. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, said Wednesday that the North’s human rights record needs to be addressed. “The Trump administration must elevate human rights and the fundamental issue of human dignity to be part of the agenda for any meeting with Kim Jong Un,” he said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers Wednesday that he had raised the issue of human rights with Kim “and it will be part of the discussions as we move forward.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckakbee Sanders on Tuesday defended the morality of offering assurances to Kim. “The goal and the purpose of these conversations would be to have complete and total denuclearization of the Peninsula,” she said. Kim is on a Treasury Department blacklist for human rights abuses, removal from which Sifton said is a likely concession Kim will seek. He added that Kim should not be granted that request as part of denuclearization talks because “you’re basically saying we’re going to give you a pass on human rights if you denuclearize.” The U.S. imposed those sanctions two years ago as part of the Obama administration’s effort to isolate North Korea, but it came as the North Korean government rapidly developed its nuclear program. It was the first time that Kim had been personally sanctioned and the first time that any North Korean officials had been blacklisted in connection with rights abuses. Announcing the sanctions, the U.S. accused North Korea of cruelty and hardship, “including extrajudicial killings, forced labor and torture.” White House officials have pushed back publicly against the notion that Trump has deprioritized international human rights. They point to Trump’s rollback of his predecessor’s opening with Cuba and his comments about the devastation wrought by the Islamic State group and Iranian-backed Hezbollah. But the list of countries on which Trump has been largely silent about human rights includes Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Philippines. Trump’s State Department has been critical of those countries, particularly in its annual report on human rights released
Mike Pompeo: US will fight Russian interference in 2018 elections
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday the Trump administration will not tolerate Russian interference in the 2018 congressional midterm elections. Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the administration will take “appropriate countermeasures” to fight what he called “continued efforts” by Russia to meddle in November’s vote. He did not elaborate on the Russian interference or say what the countermeasures would be but said there was much more work to be done to stop Russia’s efforts. He said the U.S. had not yet been able to establish “effective deterrence” to halt them. The top-ranking Democrat on the committee, Eliot Engel, however, contended that the Trump administration “is giving Russia a pass” because Russian President Vladimir Putin “supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton” in the 2016 presidential election. “If we allow foreign interference in our elections so long as it supports our political objectives, then we’ve put party before country and put our democracy in crisis,” Engel said. Russian meddling in the presidential election remains a touchy topic for President Donald Trump, as the White House tries to combat the threat posed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump denies there was any collusion. Pompeo was making his first congressional appearance since becoming top diplomat nearly a month ago, after Trump fired his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. Pompeo was testifying on the State Department’s budget, operations and policy priorities, but was asked about a wide range of issues, ranging from diplomacy with North Korea, the pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, and Russia. “We will not tolerate Russian interference in the 2018 elections,” he told lawmakers. “We will take appropriate countermeasures to continued Russian efforts.” He defended the Trump administration’s “enormous efforts to push back against Russia,” which he claimed were “light-years better than what was done in the previous administration.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
US, South Korea work to keep North Korea summit on track
The United States and South Korea are laboring to keep the U.S. summit with North Korea on track even after President Donald Trump abruptly said “there’s a very substantial chance” it won’t go off as planned. “The fate and the future of the Korean Peninsula hinge” on the meeting, South Korea’s president told Trump in an Oval Office meeting Tuesday. The summit, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, would offer a historic chance for peace. But there also is the risk of a diplomatic failure that would allow the North to revive and advance its nuclear weapons program. U.S. officials say preparations are still underway. “We’re driving on,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Trump’s newfound hesitation appeared to reflect recent setbacks in efforts to bring about reconciliation between the two Koreas, as well as concern whether the self-proclaimed deal-maker can deliver a nuclear accord with the North’s Kim Jong Un. Trump said Kim had not met unspecified “conditions” for the summit. But Trump also said he believed Kim was “serious” about negotiations, and South Korean leader Moon Jae-in expressed “every confidence” in Trump’s ability to hold the summit and bring about peace. “I have no doubt that you will be able to … accomplish a historic feat that no one had been able to achieve in the decades past,” Moon said. Trump said he didn’t want to “totally commit” himself on whether North Korea should denuclearize all at once or in phases. “It would certainly be better if it were all in one,” Trump said, before adding, “You do have some physical reasons that it may not be able to do exactly that.” Trump suggested the summit could be delayed rather than canceled: “It may not work out for June 12, but there is a good chance that we’ll have the meeting.” He did not detail the conditions he had laid out for Kim but said if they aren’t met, “we won’t have the meeting.” His spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said Trump was referring to a commitment to seriously discuss denuclearization. Skepticism about the North’s intentions have mounted in recent weeks after Kim’s government pulled out of planned peace talks with the South last week, objecting to long-scheduled joint military exercises between U.S. and South Korean forces. The North also threatened to abandon the planned Trump-Kim meeting over U.S. insistence on rapidly denuclearizing the peninsula, issuing a harshly worded statement that the White House dismissed as a negotiating ploy. Trump expressed suspicion that the North’s recent aggressive barbs were influenced by Kim’s unannounced trip to China two weeks ago — his second in as many months. Trump said he’d noticed “a little change” in Kim’s attitude after the trip. “I don’t like that,” he said. The president said he hoped Chinese President Xi Jinping was actually committed to the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, calling him a “world-class poker player.” Trump said he was displeased by China’s softening of border enforcement measures against North Korea. Trump encouraged Kim to focus on the opportunities offered by the meeting and to make a deal to abandon his nuclear program, pledging not only to guarantee Kim’s personal security but also predicting an economic revitalization for the North. “I will guarantee his safety, yes,” Trump said, noting that promise was conditioned on an agreement to complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. Trump said if such an agreement is reached, China, Japan and South Korea would invest large sums to “make North Korea great.” Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
