[Trump had repeatedly said the talks were shaping up well, even calling Kim “nice” for releasing three American prisoners held for more than a year. Until last week, that is, when North Korea made clear that it had no interest in “unilateral nuclear abandonment” and would “reconsider” proceeding with the summit if that were the condition.]
By Anna Fifield
 |
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National
security adviser John Bolton listens as President Trump talks during a
meeting in
the Oval Office at the White House in April. (Jabin Botsford/
The Washington
Post)
|
SEOUL — President Trump is blaming Kim Jong
Un for changing the scope of their summit talks planned for next month and will
doubtless air his frustrations when he meets with South Korean President Moon
Jae-in in Washington on Tuesday.
But in South Korea, many say the blame for
the sudden problems in the diplomatic process lies squarely at the feet of
someone else: John Bolton.
“There are several land mines on the way to
the summit between North Korea and the U.S.,” said Chung Dong-young, who served
as unification minister during the last progressive administration and is now a
lawmaker. “One of those land mines just exploded: John Bolton,” Chung told YTN
Radio.
Woo Sang-ho, a lawmaker in Moon’s ruling
Democratic Party, agreed. “Bolton’s preposterous ‘Libya solution’ is a red
light in North Korea’s summit talks with the U.S. and South Korea,” he wrote in
a Facebook post.
Officials in senior positions in the Moon
administration know the American national security adviser’s background well.
Many served under pro-engagement president
Roh Moo-hyun, at a time when Bolton was a strong proponent inside the George W.
Bush administration of the invasion of Iraq and of regime change in North
Korea.
“I think a lot of people who were involved
with the Roh administration are concerned about Bolton because he was such a
neoconservative at the time, and it seems that he hasn’t changed,” said Lee
Geun, a professor of political science at Seoul National University. “People
are worried that he’s going to interfere and botch the process.”
A spokesman for Bolton, now Trump’s national
security adviser, could not immediately be reached for comment.
After meetings with top officials here last
week, one American analyst remarked — only half in jest — that the South
Koreans detested Bolton as much as the North Koreans.
Moon’s visit to Washington on Tuesday was
scheduled in the wake of his own feel-good summit with Kim at the end of April
and was intended to help Trump prepare for his summit with the North Korean
leader, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
Trump had repeatedly said the talks were
shaping up well, even calling Kim “nice” for releasing three American prisoners
held for more than a year. Until last week, that is, when North Korea made
clear that it had no interest in “unilateral nuclear abandonment” and would
“reconsider” proceeding with the summit if that were the condition.
This followed Bolton’s appearance on the
Sunday shows May 13 to tout the “Libya model,” whereby Moammar Gaddafi gave up
his nuclear weapons program in 2003 in return for sanctions relief.
The North Korean regime, however, remembers
what happened afterward: Gaddafi was overthrown and brutally killed by his
opponents.
This repeated mention of Libya caused Kim Gye
Gwan, North Korea’s vice foreign minister and a figure well known to American
officials thanks to his role in 2005 denuclearization talks, to denounce
Bolton.
He said North Korea could “not hide a feeling
of repugnance toward” Bolton, a man the regime had previously derided as “human
scum” and a “bloodsucker.”
The Chosun Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper
based in Japan, doubled down on the criticism. The “super-hard-line” Bolton
“has no clear ideology or theory,” the paper wrote. “Instead, he is a simple
follower of simple thinking, racism and the narrow-minded America First
policy.”
Lee Jong-Seok, who served as South Korea’s
unification minister in the later years of the Roh administration, said the two
sides seized on different lessons from Libya. Bolton looked at it as a
successful case of denuclearizing a rogue regime, while North Korea focused on
the dictator’s grisly end.
“Bolton created a mess by bringing up the
‘Libya model,’ which is deeply dreaded by Pyongyang,” Lee said.
He added that he considers Kim Gye Gwan’s
response “low-key” in the circumstances.
“Things would have gotten out of hand had it
not been for the immediate follow-up from Trump himself,” Lee said.
Trump contradicted Bolton, saying he was not
thinking of a Libya model — “we decimated that country” — but an outcome where
Kim remained in power and his economy flourished under a denuclearization deal.
Others play down concerns about Bolton,
noting that he is in frequent contact with his South Korean counterpart.
“I do not worry about Bolton,” said Moon
Chung-in, a usually outspoken adviser to the South Korean president. “He will
follow President Trump’s lead.”
The biggest problem comes, experts here say,
from Trump’s fundamental misunderstanding of North Korea’s interests.
The regime in Pyongyang has never said it was
prepared to unilaterally give up its nuclear program but has instead repeatedly
made clear that this would have to be part of a “phased and synchronous”
process that would involve rewards for North Korea along the way.
“Kim Jong Un coming out to talks is not an
act of one-way surrender but a movement to adjust mutual interests,” said Lee
Jong-Seok, now at the pro-engagement Sejong Institute outside Seoul. “It’s not
that North Korea rejects complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,
but rather they need a tangible promise from Washington in return.”
While some here think the Trump
administration does not adequately understand North Korea’s negotiating
tactics, others think Trump is practicing his own “art of the deal.”
Bolton’s posturing looks like a ploy to Nam
Sung-wook, a senior intelligence official under a conservative government who
is now a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University.
“Trump would have been well aware of Bolton’s
hawkish stance when hiring him, and Bolton is now effectively playing the role
of ‘bad cop,’ ” Nam said. “I don’t think the Libya model
was part of Washington’s strategy from the beginning but was just brought up to
raise the stakes as much as possible before the summit. That’s Trump’s
negotiation strategy.”
Either way, many in South Korea are worried
about what happens if the Singapore summit fails to meet expectations — or if
it produces a denuclearization deal that North Korea fails to honor.
Bolton is widely perceived to have a penchant
for military action, as illustrated in a column he wrote for the Wall Street
Journal in February laying out the legal arguments for strikes on North Korea.
“In South Korea, many people, regardless of
their political orientation, are not fond of John Bolton,” said one senior
official close to Moon, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the
sensitive relationship. “He seems to think the U.S. can fight another war on
the Korean Peninsula, so from our perspective, as the people living on the
Korean Peninsula, he is very dangerous.”
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