N Korea trying to figure out Trump
SWITZERLAND: North Korean government officials have been quietly trying to arrange talks with Republican-linked analysts in Washington in an apparent attempt to make sense of United States President Donald Trump and his confusing messages to Kim Jong Un’s regime.
The outreach began before the current eruption of threats between the two leaders.
‘‘Their No 1 concern is Trump. They can’t figure him out,’’ said one person with direct knowledge of North Korea’s approach.
To get a better understanding of American intentions, in the absence of official diplomatic talks with the US government, North Korea’s mission to the United Nations invited Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst who is now the Heritage Foundation’s top expert on North Korea, to visit Pyongyang for meetings.
Trump has close ties to Heritage, a conservative think tank which has influenced the president on everything from travel restrictions to defence spending.
‘‘They’re on a new binge of reaching out to American scholars and ex-officials,’’ said Klingner, who declined the North Korean invitation. ‘‘While such meetings are useful, if the regime wants to send a clear message, it should reach out directly to the US government.’’
North Korean intermediaries have also approached Douglas Paal, who served as an Asia expert on the national security councils of presidents Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush. They wanted Paal to arrange talks between North Korean officials and American experts with Republican ties in a neutral place such as Switzerland. He also declined the request.
Over the past two years in particular, Pyongyang has sent foreign ministry officials to hold meetings with Americans – usually former diplomats and think-tankers – in neutral places such as Geneva, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. The US government has been kept informed of the talks.
But since Trump’s election in November, the North Korean representatives have been predominantly interested in figuring out the unconventional president’s strategy, according to almost a dozen people involved in the discussions.
The questions have since become more specific. Why, for instance, are Trump’s top officials, notably Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, directly contradicting the president so often?
‘‘My own guess is that they are somewhat puzzled as to the direction in which the US is going, so they’re trying to open up channels to take the pulse in Washington,’’ said Evans Revere, a former State Department official dealing with North Korea who is a frequent participant in such talks.
Revere attended a multilateral meeting with North Korean officials in the picturesque Swiss village of Glion earlier this month, together with Ralph Cossa, chairman of the Pacific Forum of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and another frequent interlocutor with Pyongyang’s representatives. The meeting is an annual event organised by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, a government linked think-tank.
The North Koreans at the meeting displayed an ‘‘encyclopaedic’’ knowledge of Trump’s tweets, to the extent that they were able to quote them back to the Americans present.
Trump yesterday thanked China for helping to rein in North Korea and claimed that international pressure on the nucleararmed outlaw nation is beginning to work, marking a change in tone amid concerns that tensions with Pyongyang are escalating dangerously.
Trump made a point of praising Chinese President Xi Jinping for his efforts to squeeze China’s ally economically and diplomatically. In other settings – usually Twitter – Trump has complained about lacklustre Chinese co-operation and suggested he could punish China economically if it did not do more.
Although Trump repeated a threat of military action, his language was mild by comparison to his branding of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as ‘‘a madman’’ and his vow last week to ‘‘totally destroy’’ North Korea if necessary to protect the US or its allies.
He also expressed confidence he could solve the impasse. ‘‘North Korea is a situation that should have been handled 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, and five years ago, and it could have been handled much more easily,’’ Trump said.
‘‘Yet various administrations, many administrations – left me a mess. But I’ll fix the mess.’’
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