S. KOREA SUMMIT DYNAMICS LIKELY CHANGED ‘QUITE A BIT’
The death of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier may complicate a White House summit between President Trump and the newly elected leader of South Korea, but could also accelerate State Department efforts to free three other Americans held captive in North Korea, an expert said.
“The fact that Mr. Warmbier has now died, it, of course, changes the dynamics quite a bit,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, said of the upcoming summit.
“North Korea comes across as less reasonable, more brutal, if not reprehensible, less trustworthy, so the South Korean president will have a tough time trying to persuade his U.S. counterpart that he can do business with North Korea,” Lee added.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was elected last month, has called for better relations with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un and just last week suspended the deployment of an American anti-missile system inside his country.
Jae-in and Trump are set to meet for the first time at a twoday summit at the White House June 29-30, where they’re expected to discuss the threat of North Korea and ongoing missile tests.
Warmbier, who had been held prisoner in North Korea for nearly a year and a half for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster, died yesterday. He had arrived back to the United States in a coma and his parents in a statement blamed “the awful, torturous mistreatment” of the North Koreans for ensuring that “no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today.”
Lee, the Tufts professor, said that while North Korea is a “bru-
tal regime that shows little regard for human life,” he doesn’t believe the isolationist nation expected Warmbier to die so soon after his release.
“I’m reasonably certain North Korea didn’t intend this,” Lee said. “I don’t think they wanted Mr. Warmbier to fall into a coma. It brings no utility, no benefit for North Korea to have this happen.”
Lee said Kim’s poor handling of Warmbier’s release could give the United States grounds to push more aggressively for the three other American prisoners trapped in North Korea: Tony Kim, Kim Hag-song and Kim Dong-chul.
“This tragic death of Mr. Warmbier presents an opportunity to give the U.S. more leverage to strike a bargain and push North Korea,” Lee said. “Certainly North Korea will feel more cowed, more sensitive about Mr. Warmbier’s death. It’s the right time for the U.S. State Department to push North Korea and demand the immediate release of the three other U.S. citizens detained.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did just that last night, saying: “We hold North Korea accountable for Otto Warmbier’s unjust imprisonment, and demand the release of three other Americans who have been illegally detained.”
But there is little expectation that any sympathy the North Koreans might have over Warmbier’s death would alter their ongoing pattern of missile and weapons testing.
Trump conceded in an April interview with Reuters that a “major, major conflict” was possible with North Korea, but that he favored a diplomatic outcome. That resolution may now be more elusive than ever.
“From an international relations perspective, this tragic turn of events certainly darkens the already deeply troubled state of U.S.-North Korean relations, currently characterized by Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile belligerence and ongoing challenges to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula as well as to the region,” said Peter Brookes of The Heritage Foundation. “It’s no wonder that a growing number of experts are coming to see North Korea as America’s No. 1 threat.”