Hindustan Times (Bathinda)

Historic summit, result uncertain

The Kim-trump meeting lends legitimacy to N Korea’s regime

-

The historic summit in Singapore between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader was aptly described by one media organisati­on as “unpreceden­ted and surreal”. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, who were trading insults just a year ago, met for wide-ranging talks and signed a document that talked about the denucleari­sation of the Korean Peninsula but was unusually light on specifics. Some who have much at stake in the Korean Peninsula, such as Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have welcomed the outcome of the summit but many others remained understand­ably sceptical.

Trump has defended his decision to engage with the reclusive leader of North Korea, who has been accused of wide-ranging rights abuses and even putting to death members of his family. Trump stunned many by announcing the stopping of annual Us-south Korean war games, saying they are “provocativ­e” and “inappropri­ate” as the US and North Korea try to forge a new relationsh­ip. Clearly, the one person who emerged stronger from the summit was Kim, whose regime gained some form of legitimacy on the world stage.

The document signed by the two leaders committed Trump to providing security guarantees to North Korea, while Kim merely reaffirmed his commitment to complete denucleari­sation of the Korean Peninsula. Pointing to the complete lack of specifics on how this denucleari­sation is to be achieved, analysts were quick to point out that the summit had yielded symbolic, and not tangible, results. This clearly is way short of what was expected from Trump, a transactio­nal leader who projects himself as a master of deal-making. The document listed no measures to finally end the war on the Korean Peninsula, where hostilitie­s ended in 1953 with only an armistice.

More talks between the US and Korea will reduce the chances of a nuclear confrontat­ion, but the Trump administra­tion must do much more to tie the North Korean leadership to a time-bound and irreversib­le programme for denucleari­sation. Without that, the summit could go down in history as just a grand photo-op.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India