Venue for Kim-Trump Summit is the First Major Negotiating Sticking Point

Here is the first major issue the US and the North Korea need to work out:

The North Koreans, in unpublicised meetings with the Americans, are saying they want Trump to see Kim in Pyongyang. The Americans, of course, do not want Trump visiting North Korea, where Kim would be in the role of a head of state receiving the American guest as a supplicant seeking his approval.

Instead, in conversations via the CIA, the Americans are pressing for the talks to be held in the capital of a third country or in the truce village of Panmunjom on the North-South line, 60km north of Seoul. That’s where South Korean President Moon Jae-in is due to meet Kim on April 27, and the Americans see no reason why Kim cannot go to Panmunjom for his summit with Trump, tentatively agreed upon to take place in May.

The Americans see the idea of Trump going to Pyongyang as another attempt on the part of Kim and his team of strategists to create obstructions to any serious attempt at negotiating an end to the North’s nuclear programme. It might seem inconceivable that Trump would go to Pyongyang to meet Kim, but what if North Korea refused to budge?

Would the result be no summit – and North and South Korea both blaming the US for refusing to accommodate North Korea’s demands? Or would North Korea, if sincerely interested in a summit, accept other suggestions?  [South China Morning Post]

You can read more at the link, but I think the North Koreans are refusing to budge from holding the summit in Pyongyang because they want to first see what the Americans have to offer.  If prior negotiations show the US not willing to make the concessions they want, the Kim regime can continue to demand that Pyongyang be the location of the summit in order to kill it and then blame the Americans for its failure.

If the Kim regime does continue to demand to hold the summit at Pyongyang, then I think President Trump should fly to South Korea and visit Panmunjom and tell Kim Jong-un when he will be there to put the onus back on him for not meeting him.