North Korea experts in US fret over Donald Trump’s go-it-alone approach to Kim talks
US President Donald Trump must secure clear commitments and a timetable from North Korea if his talks with Kim Jong-un are not to repeat failed efforts at removing nuclear weapons from the region, a former negotiator says.
Christopher Hill, who served as chief US negotiator with North Korea from 2005 to 2009, said the first step was to get a public commitment from Mr Kim’s regime.
“If they are going forward with another round of this stuff, they need to get the North Koreans on the record as they indicated that they want to denuclearise, which is something the South Koreans brought back from Pyongyang,” Mr Hill said.
Despite assuring a South Korean delegation last week that Pyongyang was committed to denuclearisation, North Korean monitoring website 38 North on March 5 – the day of the visit – said there were signs that the regime had resumed its enrichment programme.
The report said satellite images from February 25 showed steam rising from the generator hall of the North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and melting river ice near the reactor.
“If the reactor is operating again, as the evidence suggests, it means North Korea has resumed production of plutonium presumably for its nuclear weapons programme,” it said.
Mr Trump stunned the world and his own aides by announcing late on Thursday that he would meet Mr Kim by May.
Few further details of the first such meeting between leaders of the two countries have been released and analysts are warning that Washington risks being played by Mr Kim, who has long sought the diplomatic coup of meeting the US president.
A shortage of senior staff with Korean experience has raised questions about whether the Trump government has enough expertise for a successful strategy, or whether Mr Trump is driving the effort alone.
White House aides insist they have already won concessions, saying South Korean officials had assured that Pyongyang says it is ready to denuclearise and halt weapons tests.
A meeting between Mr Kim and Mr Trump would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago.
The two leaders have exchanged childish insults while the US president threatened to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued its provocative nuclear weapon and missile tests.
Mr Trump agreed to a meeting in typically unpredictable fashion.
He reportedly heard that South Korean officials were in the White House to brief his own team on Thursday and summoned them to the Oval Office, where he was told that the North Korean leader had issued a personal invitation.
Without consulting his aides, he told Chung Eui-yong, who led South Korea’s recent delegation to Pyongyang, that he would accept.
Since then White House officials have scrambled to keep pace with developments, insisting that their policy of “maximum pressure” had forced Pyongyang’s hand.
On Friday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, denied allegations that Mr Trump had given Mr Kim exactly what he wanted – a meeting on equal terms – without getting anything in return.
A day later Mr Trump added his thoughts on Twitter: “North Korea has not conducted a missile test since November 28, 2017 and has promised not to do so through our meetings. I believe they will honour that commitment.”
The question now is whether Mr Trump’s idiosyncratic approach to making deals is enough to bring real results. Analysts say having secured a meeting, the next step is to identify what “denuclearisation” means and how it can be achieved.
Mr Hill, who is now chief adviser to the chancellor in global engagement at the University of Denver, said there were lessons to be drawn from the last attempt to end North Korea’s nuclear programme.
He led the US delegation for the “six-party talks” that began after North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Pyongyang agreed to close its nuclear facilities in return for aid and the normalisation of relations.
But the deal collapsed in 2009 when the North launched a rocket in defiance of international pressure and suspicions that it was testing an inter-continental ballistic missile.
Mr Hill said progress was aided by Chinese leadership but hampered throughout by a lack of momentum, because North Korea stalled repeatedly.
“Ultimately, it failed because they didn’t give us any verification,” he said. “They were prepared to let us verify that which we already knew.”
Mr Hill said that this time, the US needed to put more effort into wooing Beijing. Many security officials believe US troops in South Korea pose more of a threat to China than North Korean nuclear missiles.
“That’s where a lot of the diplomacy needs to come in,” Mr Hill said. “We need to be talking to the Chinese day and night about these things.”
Another problem may be the gaps in key foreign policy roles. Mr Trump has yet to appoint an ambassador to Seoul. And this month the special envoy for North Korean policy, Joseph Yun, retired.
Mr Yun had been responsible for the “New York channel” of communications between Pyongyang and Washington.
The absences have provoked speculation that the State Department was looking for a senior, outside figure to take on the role.
Scott Snyder, the director of the US-Korea policy programme at the Council on Foreign Relations, said any appointment would need experience in dealing with Pyongyang, a solid understanding of previous talks and enough standing to represent the US government overseas.
But the most important factor was to be able to work with an unpredictable president. “The critical issue is that you have to be someone who Trump trusts,” he said. “That’s the hardest one, because Trump doesn’t seem to trust expertise.”
For now, that may leave only one figure qualified.
“The only special envoy I know is Donald Trump right now,” Mr Hill said.
The lack of senior staff with Korean experience raises questions about whether the US has a strategy