WINTER GAMES WARM RELATIONS OF KOREAS
Sides discuss Olympics; Trump open to Kim talks
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is hoping to extract concessions from South Korea in advance of next month’s Winter Olympics, one Korea watcher told the Herald, but the head of the repressive nation is still unlikely to wade into nuclear talks with the U.S. anytime soon.
President Trump yesterday said he was open to talks with Kim when asked at a Camp David news conference about the Olympics talks between the North and South.
“Sure, I always believe in talking,” Trump said. “Absolutely I would do that, I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all.”
Trump, quickly adding any talks would need to come with conditions, called Tuesday’s meeting between North Korea and South Korea a “big start.”
“Right now, they’re talking Olympics. It’s a start, it’s a big start,” Trump said, explaining that the North Korean leader “knows I’m not messing around. I’m not messing around, not even a little bit, not even 1 percent. He understands that.”
It’s less clear whether the North is interested in speaking with the U.S., whose clear position is for Kim to back off his nuclear aspirations, according to RAND Corp. international analyst Bruce Bennett.
“At some point, he does want talks with the U.S.,” Bennett said. “But he doesn’t want to talk about denuclearization; that’s not on the table. That’s the major U.S. issue on the table, so he’s likely going to wait until Trump is prepared to talk about something else.”
Bennett cited a concession the U.S. and South Korea are giving the North in postponing its usual “spring training” military exercises as a signal that Kim is using leverage he has to create havoc prior to or during the Winter Olympics.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis insisted the move was a practical necessity to accommodate the Olympics and was not a political gesture.
Kim “has a long-term strategy,” Bennett said. “But his overture to South Korea is brilliant because he’s got leverage on South Korea. He’s getting South Korea to take unilateral action.”
He said the South should demand Kim call off his country’s winter military training that’s already underway.
Trump and Kim have traded barbs recently about their nuclear arsenals.
Kim used his New Year’s address to say his desk has a “nuclear button” and threaten that “the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike.”
Trump fired back: “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
In October, Trump tweeted that his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, would be “wasting his time” in talks with Kim.
“Save your energy Rex,” he wrote. “We’ll do what has to be done!”
Trump last week boasted that the talks between the North and South were due to his blustery language and the fact that he was “firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North.”