U.S. and North Korean officials met to try to forge an agreement on denuclearization that the leaders of both countries could sign at a summit next month, despite doubts over Pyongyang’s willingness to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.
The former U.S. ambassador to Seoul, Sung Kim, met with senior North Korean official Choe Son Hui at the inter-Korean demilitarized zone on Monday to discuss the agenda of the planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, originally scheduled to be held June 12 in Singapore.
Separate teams from the U.S. and North Korea were due to arrive in Singapore later Monday ahead of preparatory meetings there this week, a person with knowledge of the process said. The delegations are respectively led by Joe Hagin, a White House deputy chief of staff, and Kim Chang Son, a close aide to the North Korean dictator, the person said.
The flurry of diplomatic activity signaled an effort by both sides to salvage the talks, which only days ago appeared to have collapsed. Mr. Trump had said on Thursday that he would withdraw from the summit with Mr. Kim, citing “open hostility” from North Korea. But a hastily arranged meeting of the North and South Korean leaders over the weekend, and a conciliatory statement from Mr. Trump, appeared to put the meeting back on course.
Where North and South Korea Meet
china
NORTH KOREA
north
korea
Detail
south
korea
1
4
3
2
200 feet
SOUTH KOREA
50 meters
Unification Pavilion
1
Site of inter-Korean summit Saturday
Peace House
2
Site of inter-Korean summit on April 27
Conference buildings
3
The Military Demarcation Line bisects these huts into North and South sides
4
Panmungak
North Korea’s main building in the Joint Security Area, command post
Sources: Google (images); OpenStreetMap (Military Demarcation Line)
Although details of this week’s talks remain unclear, South Korean officials, who have been mediating between Washington and Pyongyang, suggested that the U.S. and North Korea were trying to address a fundamental disagreement over denuclearization.
“At the end, there are two things that will become the agenda of the summit,” said a senior Seoul official. The U.S. is seeking assurances that North Korea will dismantle its nuclear arms in a verifiable manner, while Pyongyang is seeking U.S. promises to keep the Kim regime intact, post-denuclearization, he said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said talks with North Korea are proceeding but declined to comment further.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who met Mr. Kim over the weekend, said on Sunday that the North Korean leader remained devoted to “complete denuclearization” but noted that Pyongyang needed U.S. guarantees of regime survival as part of any deal.
In a commentary in state media on Monday, North Korea expressed a “steadfast will” to help build a “nuclear-free, peaceful world” and hailed its dismantling last week of its nuclear test site.
Still, long-held concerns about Mr. Kim’s willingness to denuclearize persist.
One sticking point is the meaning of denuclearization. The U.S. has been pushing for “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization”—something Mr. Kim won’t accept, according to the North’s highest-level defector in two decades. Instead, he said, Pyongyang would push for a watered-down denuclearization that would safeguard the regime’s survival.
The North reacted angrily in recent weeks to a suggestion from U.S. national security adviser John Bolton that the “Libya model,” under which dictator Moammar Gadhafi gave up his nuclear program in the early 2000s in exchange for sanctions relief, might serve as a blueprint for North Korea. The Libyan leader was overthrown and killed several years later.
There is a good chance that North Korea and the U.S. won’t be able to agree on what denuclearization means, said Cho Young-key, a senior researcher at the Hansun Foundation, a think tank in Seoul. North Korea believes in “sufficient” denuclearization, while the U.S. wants “complete,” noted Mr. Cho, who is conservative. Still, he thought the Singapore summit between Messrs. Trump and Kim would go ahead.
North Korea is also seeking relief from economic sanctions that have crippled its economy. Mr. Kim has indicated this year that he wants to focus on economic development, and Mr. Trump has held out promises of prosperity, saying he believes the North could be a “great economic and financial” nation one day.
The person familiar with the summit preparations said the U.S. would only announce that the process is back on track if the North Koreans show up for planning meetings in Singapore.
Separately, the two Koreas agreed to proceed with high-level talks on Friday. The North had abruptly pulled out of the discussions earlier this month, citing anger at the South’s participation in military exercises with the U.S. that involved U.S. Air Force F-16 and F-22 fighters. Those exercises wrapped up last week.
The high-level talks are expected to discuss ways to de-escalate inter-Korean military tensions and set up a reunion for some of the families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War.
But in a sign of divisions in South Korea over the rapprochement with the North, Seoul’s legislature failed on Monday to ratify the agreement the two Koreas’ leaders reached on April 27. Conservative opposition lawmakers blocked the Panmunjom Declaration, in which the two Koreas pledged to cease hostile acts toward each other and work toward a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. The opposition blamed the absence of phrases urging North Korea to pursue “complete, verifiable, and irreversible” denuclearization.
The failure to ratify the declaration will work against Mr. Moon’s efforts to deepen engagement with Pyongyang, as the declaration contained promises to provide economic aid to the North and ease inter-Korean military tensions.
Write to Andrew Jeong at andrew.jeong@wsj.com and Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com
Bagikan Berita Ini
