Nonaggression pact comes after peace treaty, ROK says

A nonaggression treaty between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States will not be discussed until a formal peace treaty is signed, the presidential Blue House of the Republic of Korea said on Tuesday.

Kim Eui-kyeom, spokesman for ROK President Moon Jae-in, said at a news briefing that discussion is underway on a peace treaty, as US President Donald Trump said.

The spokesman, however, noted that discussion was not underway on the nonaggression issue, saying that if such a discussion were to proceed, it would not be until after a peace treaty.

Moon was reportedly attempting to include a nonaggression pact between the US and the DPRK as a key plank in the declaration to officially end the Korean War.

The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, as the Korean War ended with armistice in 1953. After holding their first summit on April 27, Moon and Kim Jong-un, the DPRK’s top leader, agreed to alter the current armistice agreement into a peace treaty by year’s end. Moon’s spokesman said the nonaggression issue will be discussed after declaring an end to the war.

The spokesman said the ROK is preparing for an advance team’s visit to Kaesong, an inter-Korean border town in the DPRK, to set up a joint liaison office with the DPRK.

The highly anticipated summit between Kim Jongun and Trump is now scheduled for 9 am Singapore time on June 12, the White House said on Monday.

The US “advance team” — which features military, security, technical and medical staff — were already on the ground in Singapore “finalizing logistical preparations and will remain in place until the summit begins”, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Noting that the US is “actively” preparing for the meeting, she said the US delegation in the Demilitarized Zone along the inter-Korean border continues diplomatic negotiations with the DPRK delegation and has made significant progress.

The on-again, off-again meeting was reinstated on Friday after Trump met with Kim Yong-chol, vice-chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee, who delivered a personal letter from Kim Jong-un to Trump.

Sanders said the US has not abandoned its “maximum pressure” policy on Pyongyang. “Our policy hasn’t changed,” she said, adding that “as the president stated, we have sanctions on. They’re very powerful, and we would not take those sanctions off unless North Korea denuclearized”.

Also on Monday, the UN nuclear agency said it is ready to inspect the DPRK’s nuclear program “if it is authorized to play an essential role in the issue after a political deal is reached”.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said if a possible political agreement could be reached, after the Kim-Trump summit, the IAEA may be authorized to get access to the DPRK’s nuclear site to carry out verification task.

The DPRK dismantled the Punggye-ri nuclear test site last month under witness of foreign journalists.

Even with just one week to go, there are still doubts whether US President Donald Trump and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea leader Kim Jong-un would ultimately hold their planned summit in Singapore on June 12. On Tuesday, the US said preparations for the June 12 summit in Singapore are going well. But what will the planned Trump-Kim summit yield is as uncertain as the summit itself.

To begin with, there remain huge differences between the United States and the DPRK on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, although Kim has pledged to work toward complete denuclearization and negotiate the terms with the US.

In his New Year’s speech, Kim said the nuclear weapons program is complete and now the DPRK’s focus will shift to economic development. Information gleaned from Kim’s two visits to China suggests he has planned “phased, synchronized” denuclearization, for which he seeks the “goodwill” of the US and the ROK as a prerequisite. And his decision to suspend nuclear and intercontinental missile tests does not contradict his assertion that the DPRK has become a nuclear power.

Besides, the Third Plenary Session of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in April emphasized that the “denuclearization” referred to by the DPRK is the denuclearization of the entire Korean Peninsula. In other words, it means Washington and Seoul should stop their military exercises if they want to take the peace process forward, and in the long run, the denuclearization process will include the withdrawal of US troops from the ROK.

That denuclearization should be phased and synchronized also means “action for action”, that is, the US should lift the sanctions against and guarantee the security of the DPRK.

But Washington’s stance is totally different from Pyongyang’s. Despite Trump agreeing to meet with Kim, his poor understanding of US-DPRK relations means he has been too quick to assume Kim would accept a deal to completely abandon his nuclear program. In fact, the US strategic community viewed his decision to meet with Kim with suspicion, but by replacing the national security advisor, secretary of state, and ambassador to the ROK, Trump showed he wanted to set his own course.

The outside world hopes the backdoor diplomacy will help the two countries to reach a substantive agreement on denuclearization before the planned Trump-Kim summit. But recent developments suggest Washington and Pyongyang have not been able to even narrow their differences on denuclearization.

The US position has been consistent: “permanent, irreversible, verifiable” denuclearization of the DPRK before sanctions are lifted. And to ensure genuine “physical” denuclearization, the US wants the DPRK to follow the Libya model of disclosing its full nuclear capacity and technology, and allowing international inspectors to check its nuclear plants. Pyongyang understands this but, faced Washington’s pressure and subsequent changes in relations, it has not agreed to these terms, perhaps because it wants to get more in return for abandoning its nuclear program.

Pyongyang first pledged to work toward complete denuclearization of the peninsula at the DPRK-ROK summit on April 27, which was duly conveyed to Washington by Seoul. But since the tensions on the peninsula have eased — as have the sanctions against the DPRK — Pyongyang no longer needs to disguise the fact that it possesses nuclear capability. It seems the DPRK has gained the upper hand in this round.

However, regardless of whether Trump can swallow this bitter pill, it is not clear what the US’ next move will be if the summit is not held or if it fails to yield the results the US desires, or where the US-DPRK ties will go from here. What is certain, though, is that Washington will restart exerting maximum pressure on Pyongyang and raise the possibility of military action again, severely undermining the prospects for denuclearization.

If Washington lowers its expectations and focuses on just the intercontinental missiles aimed at the US, and agrees to phased denuclearization, the possibility of reaching a deal still exists.

But recent developments suggest Washington and Pyongyang have not been able to even narrow their differences on denuclearization.