[A meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, was canceled at the last minute earlier this month. And as the United States resumed small-scale military exercises with the South Korean military, North Korean media warned the country could restart its nuclear program unless sanctions were lifted.]
By
Simon Denyer
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A South Korean guard post is destroyed Thursday in the
demilitarized zone dividing
the two Koreas in Cheorwon. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images)
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SEOUL
— On the militarized front
line dividing the Korean Peninsula, South Korea has been busy bulldozing and
blowing up some of its guard posts.
It is a symbol of what Seoul hopes will be a
new era of relations with Pyongyang. But it also one of the few steps South
Korea can take to build confidence with the North without violating U.N.
sanctions or going against its U.S. allies and protectors.
In South Korea, frustration is building that
its efforts to improve relations with North Korea have not been matched with a
corresponding improvement in ties between Pyongyang and Washington.
Indeed, five months after President Trump met
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, there are worrying signs of backsliding.
A meeting between Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, was canceled at the
last minute earlier this month. And as the United States resumed small-scale
military exercises with the South Korean military, North Korean media warned
the country could restart its nuclear program unless sanctions were lifted.
Pyongyang is frustrated that — in its eyes —
Trump has not come through on a promise to build a “new era” of relations,
while the U.S. administration remains adamant that strict sanctions will remain
in place until North Korea surrenders its nuclear weapons.
“These acts by the U.S. apparently came from
a medieval-era way of thinking that only threatening, coercive and barbarian
tactics could enhance its negotiating leverage,” DPRK Today, a state-sponsored
website, said Monday, also complaining about recent military exercises with
Japan involving nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and bombers. Those
“illogical” tactics won’t work, it said.
In Seoul, the government is wary of
criticizing the United States directly. But behind the scenes there is a real
sense that Washington needs to move the needle forward by building trust with
the North.
“As long as this lack of confidence persists,
the United States and North Korea will just be going around in a vicious
circle,” said Lee Soo-hyuck, a ruling-party lawmaker who led South Korea’s
negotiations with the North a decade and a half ago. “I really hope the United
States has some novel idea.”
There is a fundamental disagreement between
Washington and Seoul about how we arrived at this point. The Trump
administration credits its “maximum pressure” campaign for forcing Pyongyang to
the negotiating table. South Korea’s government believes it was President Moon
Jae-in and Trump’s joint efforts to extend the hand of friendship to Kim.
From that disagreement comes discord about how
to move the process forward.
Vice President Pence told NBC News last week
that it is “absolutely imperative” that when Kim next meets Trump, he hand over
a “verifiable” plan to disclose his nuclear and weapons sites, open them for
inspection and dismantle them
“Now we need to see results,” Pence said.
It is an approach the South Koreans believe
to be premature.
“North Korea is aware that reporting a list
of its nuclear weapons is a very important step toward denuclearization,” South
Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong said during a parliamentary
hearing this month. “But such steps must come after concrete measures are taken
to build up trust by both sides.”
Chung also quoted Kim as saying that handing
over such a list before the two sides trust each other “ is the same as telling
us to submit a list of targets for attacks.”
There is understandable wariness in
Washington about trusting a regime that has never demonstrated its
trustworthiness in the past, and has not renounced a January pledge to move
from testing to mass production of warheads and missiles.
But some experts say the United States also
is at risk of missing an opportunity to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula
and explore just how far Kim is prepared to go in cutting his nuclear arsenal
in return for better relations and economic development.
Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford
University who was involved in U.S.-North Korea talks from 1992 to 2000, said
it’s unrealistic to expect North Korea to allow thousands of U.S. investigators
to roam its country at will. Washington also needs to be more aware of how its
rhetoric plays in the North, he said.
“Why is it so hard for people to grasp that
North Korea is not a conquered country?” he asked. “America also needs to stop
rubbing their noses in the fact that we’re going to keep sanctions on until
hell freezes over.”
Joseph Yun, former U.S. special
representative for North Korea, said Washington was guilty of “a tremendous
amount of mixed messaging” between Trump and other members of the
administration — and those under Trump were guilty of being “way too
uncompromising.”
As a result, he said, Pyongyang was not even
giving Pompeo and new Special Representative Stephen Biegun the chance to meet
face to face with North Korean officials. “Without getting those meetings, you
can’t rely on summits to do all that work.”
Recent articles in North Korea state media
suggest doubts may be surfacing in Pyongyang about whether Kim’s more
conciliatory approach to Washington is bearing fruit, experts say.
“Ultimately the only road to a real agreement
is to build trust between the United States and North Korea,” said Lee, the
South Korean lawmaker. Lee headed South Korea’s delegation at six-party talks
when North Korea submitted a list of its nuclear facilities in 2003. “Only if
this happens will North Korea feel safe to actually tell the truth.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has
missed small but significant opportunities to signal its interest in a new
relationship with Pyongyang, extending at the end of August a travel ban on
U.S. citizens and blocking American aid workers from making humanitarian trips
to the country.
Yun, the former special representative, said
the United States should consider opening liaison offices with North Korea but
ultimately should talk to Pyongyang about sanctions relief.
“You can see bits of the sand castle
crumbling,” said John Delury, an associate professor of international studies
at Yonsei University in Seoul. “And there’s a big wave out there.”
Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.
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