After the meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, US President Donald Trump has announced that he would meet with Kim in Singapore on June 12. Announcing the schedule for the meeting, Trump tweeted: “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!”
“I think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful. My proudest achievement will be — this is part of it — when we denuclearize that entire peninsula,” he added.
However, accusing the US of making reckless statements and of harboring “sinister intentions,” North Korean First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye-gwan has said that if the US “corners us and unilaterally demands we give up nuclear weapons, we will no longer have an interest in talks,” and “will have to reconsider” attending the summit.
This has placed a big question mark over the highly anticipated first-ever meeting between a serving US president and a North Korean leader, which has been in the making since March 8 when Trump surprisingly accepted an invitation to meet Kim. Since then, calculated efforts have been made to ensure the success of the meeting.
More to the point, the historic meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea on April 27 — which witnessed the signing of the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification on the Korean Peninsula, and also committed the two nations to a nuclear-free peninsula and talks to formally end the Korean War — has led to greater expectations from the upcoming meeting between Trump and Kim.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s secret visit to North Korea and the release by the Kim regime of three Americans who had been detained for more than a year on charges of espionage and hostile acts have emboldened the two sides for a constructive outcome from the meeting.
The venue of the meeting — Singapore — is also seen as a calculated move by the two sides to ensure a successful discussion between the two leaders, given that while the US enjoys close ties with Singapore, North Korea also has diplomatic ties with the city-state.
North Korea has also announced that it will dismantle its nuclear test site in a ceremony between Wednesday and Friday next week, and journalists from the US, South Korea, Russia and China would be invited to witness it. This is being seen as Kim’s ardent desire to improve ties with the US.
Not surprisingly, in taking these steps to reverse the direction of the relationship with Washington, Pyongyang has its own interests to achieve. More importantly, ever since the Trump administration came to power, the US has tightened efforts to penalize North Korea for its nuclear program by imposing new economic and other sanctions on it, with Trump saying that the US would, if necessary to protect itself or its allies, “totally destroy North Korea” and the “Rocket Man” who runs it.
Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, have emphasized a possible pre-emptive military attack against North Korea.
In turn, while Trump’s unpredictable behavior alarmed the Kim regime, the economic sanctions have significantly affected North Korea’s economy.
The trade war between the US and China and Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the nuclear deal with Iran have also necessitated that North Korea take measures to reduce tensions with Washington.
Thus, while the summit between Kim and Moon, North Korea’s decision to dismantle its nuclear testing site and other initiatives have created a conducive atmosphere for the two sides to hold a meeting, Pyongyang expects that talks between Kim and Trump would enable North Korea to be treated on an equal footing with the US and eliminate the US’ threat to use military force against it, thereby ending its existential fear.
The Kim regime also hopes that the meeting would result in the removal of the US’ economic sanctions on North Korea, which is seen as crucial to stabilizing the North Korean economy.
On the other hand, the US, which once believed that with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, North Korea would also collapse, wants permanent, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. As South Korea is trying to see that peace should be fostered with North Korea and the US administration wants to be seen as the peacemaker with North Korea, Trump would also be under pressure to see that his meeting with Kim results in a win-win situation for both sides.
However, North Korea has ruled out the possibility of complete denuclearization. It also canceled a scheduled meeting with South Korea on Wednesday due to ongoing joint military exercises between South Korea and the US.
Thus, at a time when things were appearing set for an encouraging outcome from the Trump-Kim meeting, North Korea’s reaction has once again underscored the continued deep distrust between the two sides.
Only time will tell if Trump and Kim succeed in infusing trust into the bilateral ties or if Washington and Pyongyang will continue to be hostile against each other, diminishing all hope for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
Sumit Kumar is a visiting fellow at National Chengchi University and a research fellow at the Chennai Center for China Studies.
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