Trump-Kim II Summit to Reportedly Focus on Closing Yongbyon Nuclear Facility
It looks like the price for North Korea for the Trump-Kim II Summit will be closing their Yongbyon nuclear facility:
The second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, scheduled for the end of February, is expected to primarily deal with shutting down North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and with corresponding measures by the US as part of fleshing out the joint statement signed by the two leaders in their Singapore summit on June 12, 2018, according to a high-ranking official at South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The question of building a peace regime is also expected to receive considerable attention.
Hankyoreh
“The US also places considerable significance” on North Korea’s conditional offer to shut down the Yongbyon reactor, a senior official at the Foreign Ministry who is familiar with the North Korea-US negotiations said during a meeting with reporters on Jan. 31. “Since this idea was brought up by North Korea, the discussion will focus on Yongbyon and then move on to other topics.”
During the inter-Korean Pyongyang Joint Statement in Sept. 2018, North Korea expressed its willingness to permanently close the Yongbyon nuclear facility presuming that the US takes corresponding measures, but some have argued that the Yongbyon facility is so old that closing it would have little value.
You can read more at the link, but closing Yongbyon is of more symbolic value for the US because the Kim regime can just reopen it whenever they decide to create another crisis. Even if they completely destroyed and dismantled Yongbyon such a deal does nothing to identify and shutdown any clandestine nuclear sites they may have.
It will be interesting to see what the US gives up in return for closing Yongbyon because the article claims that sanctions especially on the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Kumgang Tours will remain in place. That means that a peace treaty and/or humanitarian aid will likely be what is offered.
