Trump-Kim meeting must avoid going round in circles

There is no guarantee that the announced second meeting the top leaders of the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will produce anything substantive, or live up to either side’s — or the rest of the world’s — expectations. But that should not prevent us from accepting the upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un as another step forward. At least in the sense of keeping the denuclearization process alive.

Despite worries that the United States president’s eagerness for a “win” may undermine US strategic interests, it may be essential for opening up a new phase featuring meaningful interaction.

Trump needs something worth boasting about as he is under pressure from the partial government shutdown over the funding for his wall on the border with Mexico and the “Russian connection” investigation. But Kim also needs a positive outcome, as the DPRK’s economy continues to suffer under United Nations sanctions, which simultaneously constrain his rapid détente with the Republic of Korea.

Considering that shared eagerness, the question then becomes whether, or to what extent, Trump and Kim can break the current stalemate at their coming summit.

That the US president agreed to a second summit following a faceto-face meeting with the DPRK’s top denuclearization negotiator Kim Yong-chol should be a signal he at least has an idea about what the next steps will be. A second summit ending without any tangible outcomes will put himself in an even more awkward position.

But for this meeting to be productive, the two parties will have to demonstrate a shared political will to get real about what they promised last time.

Things may easily return to the apparently circular quarrel over what constitutes meaningful moves, or reciprocity. That is precisely what this summit should strive to tackle. Without breaking that endless circle, denuclearization negotiations will go nowhere.

For the summit to be worthwhile, the two leaders must make serious endeavors to bridge the gap between their governments’ stances on how denuclearization should proceed. Washington’s desire for swift, independently verifiable, irreversible denuclearization has proven unrealistic. Pyongyang’s calls for reciprocity remain unanswered.

Since Pyongyang has gone the extra mile to prove its sincerity, Washington must consider beginning to reciprocate.

Since denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula appears increasingly likely to be a phased process, it would do no harm to any party for that process to start with the formal ending of the nominal state of war.

That is a very low-cost way to attain a feat of potentially historic importance.