A wobble on the road to Singapore

North Korea pulls out of meeting with Seoul and threatens to pull plug on historic summit with US

While June 12 has been circled in calendars by diplomats in Washington and in and around the Korean peninsula for the scheduled summit in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, there are now signs emerging that all may not indeed be plain sailing to that historic encounter. On Tuesday, the regime in Pyongyang abruptly gave notice that it was cancelling a planned meeting between its representatives and those of South Korea, citing Seoul’s insistence on conducting planned military exercises with US air forces in the region. While the exercises are part of the many scheduled there during any year, Pyongyang has taken umbrage at the event.

What is worrying now for analysts is that in cancelling the scheduled meeting with the South, the North said it had no interest in attending the Singapore summit with President Trump if it is to be based solely on the one-sided demands that it give up its nuclear weapons. In effect, Pyongyang is saying that it wants to be treated on the same footing as the US, rather than as a subservient state negotiating from a position of nuclear weakness. According to the North’s vice-minister of foreign affairs, Pyongyang said the fate of the summit and bilateral relations “would be clear” if Washington is only interested in a “Libya-style” denuclearisation of the North.

What analysts and observers need to figure out now is if indeed Pyongyang is serious about pulling the plug on the summit, or is merely posturing to lower the expectations that have grown exponentially since events began to move swiftly in the weeks before the Winter Olympics in mid-February.

Certainly, over the past two decades, from the days of Kim’s grandfather, Pyongyang has shown itself to be a master of offering concessions on one hand, while ratcheting up pressure on the other. It has a proven track record of pushing events to the limit and then winning concessions such as food and aid supplies, while maintaining the tough facade of the regime to its repressed people.

There is also the reality too that the delicate situation on the Korean peninsula has lasted for so long that the prospect of a thaw now seems to run contrary to the long-term reality on the ground.

Military exercises between the South and the US have long been a thorn for Pyongyang. Perhaps the timing of the Max Thunder exercises now is not wholly appropriate given the prospect of a first US-North Korea summit on June 12.