Experts fear Kim’s nuke talk a trap
Say vow buys time
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s apparent concession to halt missile tests and dismantle a nuclear test center is a clear trap that experts say U.S. and world leaders have fallen into time and time again.
President Trump hailed the announcement as “very good news for North Korea and the World,” adding “big progress!”
Korea watchers warned that Kim saying Friday that he’d stop testing missiles and halt operations at a major nuclear site is meant to lure Trump into valuable photoops between the leaders and prolonged talks that show so much promise but in the end far fall short from the White House’s goal of full denuclearization.
“I’ve seen this movie several times,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, listing on the recurring scenes where Kim’s father and grandfather have softened their tones toward denuclearization only to back out.
“North Korea goes through cycles of relentless provocation, then all of a sudden does an about-face and dangles the carrot, the promise of denuclearization and everyone takes the bait,” Lee told the Herald. “I feel like Trump is walking right into a trap.”
The announced but yet unplanned summit between the two leaders promises to boost Kim and North Korea’s stance in the world, while the isolated and broadly sanctioned country flouts international law regarding nuclear development and human rights. It buys Kim time to perfect the North’s nuclear posture, and the talks with the U.S. even risk eroding international support for the recently enacted sanctions.
The summit “would legitimize Kim as the leader of a sovereign state,” he said. “The U.S. would importantly be saying we accept you as a nuclear power, as a nation that operates Houston- and Los Angeles-size gulags.”
Kim’s opening offer comes after a string of positive, opening developments from the North, from the detente during the Winter Olympics in South Korea that Kim’s sister attended to a meeting this week between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-In.
Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, said the offer from Kim has made it harder for Trump to walk away from any negotiations by raising the stakes for the U.S. disengaging.
“It seems clear they have Trump on the line now that he’s personally hopeful for a deal,” Mount said. “That sort of optimism won’t serve him well in negotiations.”
There is plenty of daylight between what Kim has pledged — the halting of missile tests and a shutdown of its nuclear test site — and what the White House has demanded: full denuclearization.
“It suggests not that he’s refraining from tests for diplomatic reasons or because he was pressured to do so, but that for technical reasons, it’s no longer necessary,” Mount said.
“He’s suspending tests, which implies they could resume.”