I said it Wednesday, and I’l say it again today: stop me if you’ve heard this before. The news coming from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea keeps getting stranger and stranger. Much of this may well have been “overcome by events” by the time this article runs, but South Korean representatives and the White House announced Thursday evening that President Trump has accepted an offer to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un by May.
A fast-breaking story
Shortly after 8:00 p.m., the president tweeted, “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!”
ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl ran into the president and vice president outside the West Wing before the South Korean announcement. When he asked if the upcoming statement was about negotiations. “It’s almost beyond that,” he responded, adding, “Hopefully, you will give me credit.”
The president’s critics will never give him credit, but the Republic of Korea certainly is. Speaking outside the West Wing Thursday evening after a day of meetings in the White House, South Korean national security director Chung Eui-yong said, “I explained to President Trump that his leadership, and his maximum pressure policy, together with international solidarity, brought us to this juncture.”
But where is this juncture, really?
Serious hurdles to overcome
To recap (seems like I just said this recently), Kim said just two months ago that the fact North Korea is a nuclear state was something “which no force and nothing can reverse.” There’s indication that the north Koreans dug fresh tunnels at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, and that the country has restarted its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon.
I can think of only two reasons for this sudden change of heart: either the latest round of sanctions, aimed directly at 28 individual merchant vessels accused of smuggling oil into the DPRK in violation of earlier UN sanctions are actually freezing the Koreans out, or Kim is playing the game his father played: lie to take the pressure off.
But there’s really no reason for Trump not to agree to the talks, so long as everyone involved is prepared to walk out at the first whiff of deception. And there’s bound to be deception, it’s the only play in the Kim family playbook.
But were these talks to happen (and that’s still a huge “if”), it would make Trump the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader — although President Bill Clinton did meet Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, in 2009 in an effort to gain the release of two detained American journalists.
Kim has caught the U.S. somewhat off-balance here. I don’t think anyone would have seen this overture coming just a few weeks ago, so there’s lots of preparations and, pardon the phrase, war gaming to do before May. Until then, the “maximum pressure policy” must continue. We cannot let up, even for a moment, based solely on the promise of talks.
I really won’t be satisfied that North Korea is serious until U.S.-led technical teams have dismantled all of North Korea’s existing nukes, along with its mobile missile launchers, and permanently decommissioned the Yongbyon reactor. Anything less would be to admit defeat.
