North Korea offers sliver of opening
Whether Trump can use talks to pry out concessions is the question
WASHINGTON — For weeks, Vice President Mike Pence had secretly prepared for what appeared a historic opportunity — the highest level meeting between the U.S. government and North Korea since President Bill Clinton welcomed a visiting Vice Marshal to the White House in 2000.
Pence had attended the Winter Olympic opening ceremonies Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the next morning in his hotel, he hammered out final terms of the meeting he expected to hold that day with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister and other high-ranking aides, according to two White House officials.
Pence planned to say in private what he had declared in public — that the White House would maintain harsh economic restrictions on Pyongyang until its leaders showed concrete signs of ending their nuclear program.
But the North Koreans backed out two hours before the scheduled meeting, apparently irked by Pence’s discussions the previous day with defectors from the totalitarian state, and his announcement of harsh new sanctions en route to South Korea.
When it came to light, the cancellation seemed an embarrassing setback for the White House. But a month later, with South Korea’s announcement Tuesday that Kim Jong Un had offered to freeze his nuclear and missile tests to engage in talks with the U.S., the events have taken on a more positive light.
While the motivations of North Korea’s leaders remain opaque, it appears possible that toughened sanctions and President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to diplomacy may have helped bring Kim’s government back to the negotiating table.
Kim still could end up getting the upper hand, using the grinding pace of diplomacy — as his late father, Kim Jong Il, did — as a smokescreen while he gets closer to building a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the continental United States. U.S. officials say that goal could be just months away.
Trump said Tuesday that he’d “like to be optimistic” but that he’s still prepared to “go whichever path is necessary.”
In keeping with the president’s caution, officials in the White House were skeptical North Korea would follow through.
“Take a deep breath,” a senior administration official said Tuesday. “Keep in mind that we have a long history — about 27 years of history of talking to North Koreans — and there is also a 27-year history of them breaking every agreement they’ve ever made with the United States and the international community.”
A South Korean delegation will visit Washington this week to brief the administration on North Korea’s overture.
This past Saturday night, Trump appeared to signal that talks were back on track. “We will be meeting, and we’ll see if anything positive happens,” Trump told journalists at a whitetie dinner in Washington.
At the time, officials said Trump was referring to South Korean efforts to get the North Koreans and the U.S. into talks, but said that nothing had been scheduled.
The breakthrough didn’t come until South Korea’s intelligence chief and top national security official returned to Seoul on Tuesday from a meeting with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. For the first time, they said, he was prepared to freeze his nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Several U.S. experts said the tightening economic sanctions, which the U.S. contends have cut 90 percent of the country’s export income, had pushed North Korea to consider talks.
“The threat of force may be a factor, but it is clear that economic pressure has had impact,” said William Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“What we do know about North Korea ... is that past offers of dialogue frequently prove to be a fig leaf for ulterior purposes,” said Bruce Klingner, former CIA division chief for the Koreas.
Trump believes his strategy has paid off. Standing next to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven during a press conference Tuesday, Trump said he hoped the North Koreans were serious about talking. “I hope they’re sincere,” he said. “We’re going to soon find out.”