Pence seems open to talks with N. Korea
The vice president doesn’t rule out a meeting on sidelines of the Olympics.
WASHINGTON — The White House publicly signaled for the second day in a row Tuesday that it would consider a meeting with North Korea on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, a move that could help ease months of rising tensions and nuclear threats — at least for now — on the Korean peninsula.
Vice President Mike Pence said in Alaska that he has not sought a meeting for when he arrives in South Korea but “we’ll see what happens.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had used the same language Monday in Lima, Peru.
Pence and Tillerson spoke to each other at least twice in recent days, and their statements were coordinated to send a message, according to a senior administration official.
“All it does is indicate that anything is possible,” said the official, who is accompanying Tillerson on a visit in Latin America. “They are in the exact same place on this issue.”
Pence will attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which begin Friday. A delegation of 22 North Korean athletes, performers and officials is expected to march under one flag with the South Koreans under a deal worked out between the rival governments. The two longtime adversaries also will field a joint women’s hockey team.
North Korea has not publicly responded to the U.S. offer, and the chance of a diplomatic breakthrough is exceedingly dim. But Pyongyang is sending Kim Yong Nam, who heads the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the nation’s rubber-stamp parliament.
Kim, 90, is reportedly the highest-level North Korean official to visit the South in years so even a ceremonial meeting with Pence could carry symbolic weight.
By offering to meet the North Koreans, the White House appeared to be trying to leverage the nascent and still fragile diplomatic rapprochement between the two Koreas, which caught the Trump administration off guard. Washington did not participate in the direct talks between Seoul and Pyongyang.
“Let me say, President Trump has said he always believes in talking, but I haven’t requested any meetings. But we’ll see what happens,” Pence told reporters during a refueling stop in Anchorage, on his way to Japan and South Korea.
As far as is known, no one from the Trump administration has met with a representative of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government over the last year. During that time, Pyongyang successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. East Coast, and tested a thermonuclear bomb far more powerful than its previous devices.
Michael Allen, a former senior director on the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House, warned Pence’s outreach could backfire.
“That’s fine for the Olympic spirit, but it’s doing nothing to get us toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” Allen said in an interview.
The Trump administration may bring the overtures up later with the South Korean government when they want to stage additional military exercises or increase antimissile batteries, Allen said. “One interpretation is that [the White House wants] to be seen as going the extra mile knowing that the talks would be fruitless,” he said.
Pence plans to denounce the North Korean security state during Olympics broadcasts. He has invited along a potent reminder of the country’s abuses: the father of Otto Warmbier, a U.S. student who died shortly after he was returned home in a coma after months in North Korean custody.