No war games, nukes
ONCE BITTER ENEMIES TRUMP, KIM SEAL ‘EPOCHAL’ DEAL
‘They laid out goals of future negotiations without specifying immediate steps’
WITH US President Donald Trump setting the course for normalising ties with North Korea and even saying war games with South Korea would end, China appeared a winner from yesterday’s summit hailed as historic, as Japan tried putting a brave face on the outcome.
Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pledged to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and signed a “comprehensive” document at a landmark summit in Singapore.
In turn, Washington committed to provide security guarantees for North Korea, though the joint statement was light on specifics.
Trump and Kim noted the symbolism of the moment in their document, calling it an “epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities” between the countries.
In four bullet points, they laid out goals of future rounds of negotiations without specifying what immediate steps either would take.
At a post-summit press conference, Trump said Washington would end “very provocative” and costly military exercises with South Korea, a move that would rattle Seoul and Tokyo, which rely on the US military for their own security.
China, North Korea’s most important economic and diplomatic supporter, despite its anger at Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests, wasted little time with a reminder that UN sanctions could be adjusted if North Korea behaved itself.
“The UN Security Council resolutions that have been passed say that if North Korea respects and acts in accordance with the resolutions, then sanction measures can be adjusted, including to pause or remove the relevant sanctions,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Geng Shuang, said at a daily news briefing.
The Global Times, an influential Chinese state-run newspaper, said in an editorial that the time was right to consider “an appropriate reduction of the sanctions”.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put a positive spin on the summit, welcoming the fact that Trump told a news conference he had raised the issue of Japanese abductees, though there was no mention of that in the document signed by Kim and Trump.
South Korea’s presidential office said it needed to seek clarity on Trump’s intentions after he said Washington would stop joint military exercises.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has been front and centre in efforts to engage the North and Kim himself, pledged complete co-operation.
“My administration will spare no effort in co-operating with the United States, North Korea and the international community to ensure that the agreement can be implemented in its entirety,” Moon said in a statement.
China, which has long suggested a “dual suspension” whereby North Korea suspends its weapons tests and the United States and South Korea suspend military drills, could effectively claim that as an outcome despite not being a party to the summit.
“This joint declaration is in line with the three principles of ‘no chaos, no war and peaceful settlement’ proposed by the Chinese government,” said Liang Yabin, an associate professor at Beijing’s Central Party School, which trains rising officials.
While China was not a direct party to the summit, it was nonetheless a presence: Kim met President Xi Jinping twice in the run-up and even borrowed an Air China 747 to get to Singapore so he didn’t have to rely on his own Soviet-era plane.
Several experts said the meeting failed to secure any concrete commitments by Pyongyang towards this. The statement also did not refer to human rights in one of the world’s most repressive nations.
Trump expected the denuclearisation process to start “very, very quickly” and it would be verified by “having a lot of people in North Korea”. He said Kim had announced that North Korea was destroying a major missile engine-testing site, but sanctions on North Korea would stay in place for now.
The UN says secretary-general Antonio Guterres called the summit “an important milestone” in advancing peace and “complete a verifiable denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula”. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the secretary-general “urges all concerned parties to seize this momentous opportunity”.
Dujarric said Guterres wrote to both leaders before the summit and reiterated that “the road ahead requires co-operation, compromise and a common cause”.
CLASPING hands and forecasting future peace, President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un committed yesterday to “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula during the first meeting in history between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.
Yet as Trump toasted the summit’s results, he faced mounting questions about whether he got too little and gave away too much – including an agreement to halt US military exercises with treaty ally, South Korea.
Meeting at a staged ceremony on a Singapore island, Trump and Kim came together for a summit that seemed unthinkable months ago, when the two nations traded nuclear threats.
The gathering of the two unpredictable leaders marked a striking gamble by the American president to grant Kim long-sought recognition on the world stage in the hope of ending the North’s nuclear programme.
Both leaders expressed optimism throughout roughly five hours of talks, with Trump thanking Kim afterwards “for taking the first bold step towards a bright new future for his people”.
Kim, for his part, said the leaders had “decided to leave the past behind” and promised: “The world will see a major change.”
Light on specifics, the document signed by the two leaders largely amounted to an agreement to continue discussions, as it echoed previous public statements and past commitments.
It did not include an agreement to take steps towards ending the technical state of warfare between the US and North Korea.
Trump, holding forth at a free-flowing media briefing after Kim departed, said the North Korean leader had before him “an opportunity like no other” to bring his country back into the community of nations, if he follows through on pledges to give up his nuclear programme.
Trump announced that he would be freezing US military “war games” with its ally South Korea, while negotiations between the two countries continue. He cast the decision as a cost-saving measure, but North Korea has long objected to the drills as a security threat.
Trump acknowledged that the timetable for denuclearisation is long, but said, “once you start the process it means it’s pretty much over”.
The president acknowledged that US intelligence on the North Korean nuclear stockpile is limited, “probably less there than any other country”, he said. “But we have enough intelligence to know that what they have is very substantial.”
Trump brushed off questions about his public praise for an autocrat whose people have been oppressed for decades. He added that Otto Warmbier, an American once detained in North Korea, “did not die in vain” because his death brought about the nuclear talks.
And he said Kim has accepted an invitation to visit the White House – at the “appropriate” time.
The two leaders promised in their joint document to “build a lasting and stable peace regime” on the Korean Peninsula, repatriate remains of prisoners of war, and those missing in action from the Korean War.
Language on North Korea’s bombs was similar to what the leaders of North and South Korea came up with at their own summit in April. At the time, the Koreans faced criticism for essentially kicking the issue of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal down the road to yesterday’s Trump-Kim summit.
Trump and Kim even directly referenced the so-called Panmunjom Declaration, which contained a weak commitment to denuclearisation and no specifics on how to achieve it.
The formal document-signing followed a series of meetings at a luxury Singapore resort.
After the signing, Trump said he expected to “meet many times” in the future with Kim and, in response to questions, said he “absolutely” would invite Kim to the White House.
For his part, Kim hailed the “historic meeting” and said they “decided to leave the past behind”.
In a moment that would never happen in North Korea, reporters began shouting questions to Trump and Kim after they signed the document, including whether they had discussed the case of Warmbier, the American college student who suffered brain damage while in North Korean custody and died in June, 2017, days after he returned home to Ohio.