Fate of summit
Two allies should narrow differences with North
The just-ended summit between Seoul and Washington has raised both hopes and concerns about the upcoming summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
For starters, the positive side of President Moon Jae-in’s meeting with Trump in Washington, D.C., Tuesday is that the two leaders managed to agree on a united strategy for the success of the summit scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
It is good to see Moon and Trump stepping up cooperation in holding the summit to denuclearize the North successfully. They should not play into the hands of the Kim regime that might try to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.
The two leaders should not provide any room for the North to weaken the alliance amid Kim’s peace offensive which abruptly soured when Pyongyang suspended high-level inter-Korean talks and threatened to cancel the Kim-Trump summit last week. In this regard, Moon’s fourth summit with Trump was seen as timely and appropriate in dealing with the North’s noncooperation and clearing the hurdles to the Singapore summit.
Most of all, Trump has made clearer the shared goal of dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons. He has also clung to the consistent U.S. formula: a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID). It seems Trump has dropped the “Libyan model” that his National Security Adviser John Bolton advocated. Instead, the president has come up with his own model in an apparent bid to placate the North which is strongly against what it described as “unilateral” denuclearization.
However, it is still unclear whether the Trump model will satisfy the North. He apparently wants to see the North denuclearize in a short period of time without offering any concessions before that. But Pyongyang prefers a step-by-step and reciprocal method so it can get rewards for every step it takes. So it is important for Moon and Trump to work more closely to bridge the gap with Kim.
Trump has reaffirmed the U.S. would guarantee the safety of the Kim regime if the North dismantles its nuclear program all at once. He has also promised to help North Korea revive its economy so it can match that of South Korea.
However, Trump has raised some worries by saying his planned meeting with Kim may not happen next month if some conditions are not met. He apparently hinted at canceling or scuttling the summit although officials and experts in Seoul and Washington downplay that possibility. Probably, he was trying to put more pressure on Kim to accept his denuclearization formula.
We hope Trump, a businessman-turned-president, will use his negotiating skills to bring Kim to the summit and strike a grand deal with him. Kim should also seize the opportunity to go down the path to peace and co-prosperity in exchange for denuclearization.