It still amazes me that despite all the evidence to the contrary people still think North Korea will denuclearize if the US just makes the right deal:
Joel Wit, editor of the website 38 North, enters a Geneva hotel for talks with North Korean officials on Nov. 17, 2016. (Yonhap)
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump should use his seasoned negotiating skills to cut a deal with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs, a U.S. expert Tuesday said after rare talks with a group of senior diplomats from the communist nation.
Joel Wit, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s US-Korea Institute and founder of the website 38 North, made the suggestion in an article to the Atlantic magazine after returning from three days of meetings with North Korean diplomats in Geneva last week.
Wit called for opening negotiations with Pyongyang, saying that the North Korean nuclear issue, one of the biggest problems facing the incoming administration, might also be his biggest opportunity.
“Donald Trump could have an opportunity early in his presidency, if he follows his instincts instead of all the wrong advice he is likely to get on how to deal with North Korea, to prove his Promethean negotiating skills on one of the most serious national-security challenges the United States will confront over the next four years,” he said in the article written jointly with Richard Sokolsky, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
During campaigning, Trump expressed a willingness to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying there is nothing wrong with talking, Wit said. However, the incoming leader appears, like his predecessors, appears to “want to dump the North Korean problem into China’s lap,” he said. (…….)
“No one believes that the North will agree to give up all its nuclear weapons and related infrastructure and abandon its development of ICBMs and missiles,” Wit said. “But there is a great deal that can be done to freeze and then maybe eventually reverse these programs, bringing the world closer to that ultimate objective.” [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but Mr. Wit can count me as one of the people who are non-believers in North Korea ever denuclearizing. Considering what Kim Jong-un has seen happened to other leaders (i.e.: Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi) in recent years that did not have nuclear weapons why would he ever consider giving up his? The best the US could hope for is a nuclear development freeze which would only last until the North Koreans found some reason to break the deal long after they received whatever benefits they negotiated for. This is historically what they have done and blamed the US each time they broke the deal.
What in the nature of the Kim regime has changed to think that they will act in any other way this time?
Here is the status of the unofficial talks between the US and North Korea going on in Malaysia:
In this two separate photos taken on Oct. 22, 2016, in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, former U.S. deputy nuclear negotiator Joseph R. DeTrani (L) and North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations Jang Il-hun (R) talk to reporters on the sidelines of their informal dialogue held from Friday to Saturday over pending issues. (Yonhap)
A North Korean delegation led by its deputy foreign minister held talks with former government officials of the United States here for a second day on Saturday to discuss pending issues such as the North’s nuclear and missile tests.
The U.S.-North Korea contact, although it is informal or unofficial, came after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test in September, just eight months after its previous nuke test.
“I came here through Beijing,” the North’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations Jang Il-hun told Yonhap News Agency. As for topics discussed during the dialogue, he said the two sides talked about several “pending issues and each other’s thoughts on them.”
Asked whether there was an offer from the U.S. to stop its nuclear and missile tests, he fell short of clarifying, but said, “hopely moving forward.”
North Korea’s vice foreign minister Han Song-ryol was also among the five-member delegation. The four-member U.S. delegation included Robert Gallucci, who negotiated a landmark 1994 nuclear freeze deal with Pyongyang; former U.S. deputy nuclear negotiator Joseph R. DeTrani; and Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York.
Sigal told Yonhap News that the two parties mainly discussed the North’s nuclear and missile issues during the informal dialogue.
The North stuck to its stance that it wants to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. before it stops its nuclear and missile programs. But the U.S. reiterated its position that scrapping nuclear programs should be put before anything else, Sigal said. [Yonhap]
It looks like the Kim regime is probing to see what free goodies it can get from the US for little to nothing in return:
A ranking North Korean official arrived in Beijing on Tuesday before possibly traveling to Malaysia for informal talks with former U.S. officials or experts, a Japanese news report said.
North Korea’s deputy foreign minister Han Song-ryol was seen at Beijing’s international airport, according to Kyodo News.
“He could be set to meet former U.S. officials or experts on North Korean issues, and the discussions will most likely be held completely behind-the-scenes under the informal, unofficial track II format,” Kyodo reported, citing the source.
An official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said he cannot confirm anything at the moment.
Han’s possible trip to Malaysia, if confirmed, comes after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test in September, just eight months after its previous nuke test.
The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) is working on a fresh sanctions resolution to punish Pyongyang for its latest nuclear provocation. In March, the UNSC slapped tougher sanctions on the North for its nuclear and long-range rocket launches early in the year.
Until recently, Han served as director-general handling U.S. affairs at North Korea’s foreign ministry, the report said.
Han met with a private U.S. delegation, which made a rare visit to North Korea in late September, the New York Times reported on Oct. 9.
During the Sept. 24-27 visit, the delegation discussed a U.S. student detained in the communist nation, recovering the remains of American soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War and possible flood assistance for the North, it said. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I would be surprised if anything comes out of this considering the upcoming change in the Presidency. Would President Obama want his legacy to be a last minute deal with the North Koreans that they would inevitably violate?
Joel Witt from the US-Korea Institute and a former Clinton Administration official in charge of implementing the failed Agreed Framework with North Korea in the 1990’s, is calling for suspending military exercises and more talks with North Korea:
A successful strategy will have to include a new diplomatic initiative aimed at persuading the North to first stop expanding its arsenal and then to eventually reduce and dismantle its weapons. To persuade the North Koreans to do this, Washington will have to address their security concerns. In the short term, that may mean temporarily suspending or modifying some American-South Korean military exercises. In the longer term, it may mean replacing the armistice in place since the end of the Korean War with a permanent peace agreement.
These initiatives will be met with skepticism not only in the United States — where many people believe that negotiating with North Korea is a waste of time — but also in Pyongyang. As a North Korean official, who believes a new administration will just tear up previous agreements, said to me earlier this year, “It’s easier for us to build nuclear weapons than to be involved with you for decades only to have agreements turn into useless scraps of paper.”
Nevertheless, there are signs that North Korea is interested in dialogue. On July 6, the government issued a pronouncement ostensibly seeking denuclearization talks with the United States, specifically mentioning Kim Jong-un’s name in support of this initiative.
One reason North Korea may be motivated to consider denuclearization is economic. Since taking office in 2011, Mr. Kim has been committed to improving his country’s economy. [New York Times]
You can read more at the link, but what reason has North Korea given that the US should end military exercises with the ROK? They are not going to stop their provocations unless they get a deal where they get a lot of free “aid” for little to nothing in return which they can then tear up and demand a new deal later due to some made up reason. That is how the prior agreements with North Korea have worked, what is different now?
Plus they are never going to give up their nuclear program. From a regime security perspective why would they? Also as far economic development, isn’t it in the Kim regime’s interest to keep their people poor so they are easier to control? Kim just has to keep the ruling elite happy which the regime has showed the ability to mostly do and for those he can’t keep happy he tends to ruthlessly purge. In my opinion economic incentives for little to nothing in return will only tighten his grip on power with the ruling elite and do little for the common North Korean.
There is a difference between open to talks and actually talking. If the Kim regime feels they can get something for little to nothing in return then they will talk. Kim Jong-il for the first Inter-Korean summit received $500 million for little to nothing in return. In the mean time they can claim they are open to talks and look like the reasonable ones in the media and for their leftist supporters. However, if the South Koreans do not give them what they want they can blame US-ROK military exercises or some other excuse to call their proposal. In other words don’t get too excited by this announcement this is just business as usual for the North Koreans:
Could an inter-Korean summit happen soon? That’s what the South Korean government is hoping, in light of the North Korean leader’s latest speech.
“We see North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s speech as sincere and significant. Our government is looking forward to any form of inter-Korean talks in the near future.”
In Kim Jong-un’s [ ] nationally televised New Year’s speech, he said he’s open to talks with Seoul, even possibly with President Park Geun-hye.
“If the atmosphere and environment are right, there is no reason not to hold a high-level summit. We will make every effort to advance dialogue and cooperation.”
As North Koreans rang in the new year, Kim used his third annual address to speak on different issues, but spent the most time talking about improving ties with South Korea. Seoul is now urging Pyongyang to take steps to normalize relations, such as responding to its earlier proposal to hold talks this month. The North Korean leader, however, also criticized South Korea’s military exercises with the U.S., calling them a source of tension. [Arirang News]
The two Koreas on Wednesday held closed-door high-level military talks in the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjeom only to find the wide gaps in their views over a set of pending defense issues, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said.
During the talks at the South-controlled Peace House, the two sides failed to bridge the gaps over the issues of heightened tensions surrounding the Northern Limit Line, a de facto sea border, anti-Pyongyang leaflets and other sensitive issues.
After the unfruitful meeting, Seoul’s Unification Ministry announced that it had proposed holding the second round of high-level inter-Korean talks at Tongilgak, a building on the North Korean side of Panmunjeom, on Oct. 30.
The proposal was sent to the North two days earlier, but the North had yet to respond to it. During a surprise visit by the high-level North Korean delegation to the Incheon Asian Games on Oct. 4, the two sides agreed to resume high-level talks, which were last held in February. [Korea Herald]
You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans basically want the ROK to stop Park Sang-hak and his crew from launching their propaganda balloons and to give up the NLL for nothing in return.
