BACK FROM BRINK: US AND NORTH KOREAN LEADERS MEET
Trump praises Kim’s ‘bold step’ towards bright future Academic describes ‘baby steps’ on road to peace
SHAKE ON IT: This was the moment American president Donald Trump shook hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Capella resort on Sentosa island in Singapore. The meeting marked 10 months since the world’s heart missed a beat as Mr Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on the rogue state, whose leader he mocked as a “little rocket man”.
EXACTLY 10 months had passed since the world’s heart missed a beat as Donald Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on the rogue state whose leader he mocked as a “little rocket man”.
He was apparently speaking and tweeting off the cuff, but his rhetoric ratcheted up the prospect of nuclear conflict to a level not seen since the Cold War.
Yesterday, finally, the ice began to thaw as Mr Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un took what one Yorkshire academic described as “their first baby steps” on the road to peace.
The US president pledged unspecified “security guarantees” to the North and Mr Kim recommitted to the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.
Amid staged ceremony on a Singapore island, the pair’s summit appearance, which had seemed unthinkable months ago, saw them clasping hands, holding a one-on-one meeting, talks with advisers and a working lunch.
At a news conference after the meeting, Mr Trump thanked Mr Kim for “taking the first bold step toward a bright new future for his people”.
The president said “real change is indeed possible” and that he was prepared “to start a new history” and “write a new chapter” between the two nations.
Mr Trump announced he would freeze US military “war games” with his ally South Korea while negotiations continue. He cast the decision as a cost-saving measure, but Pyongyang has long considered the drills to be a security threat.
The president acknowledged that the timetable for denuclearisation was long, but said: “Once you start the process it means it’s pretty much over.”
He sidestepped his public praise for an autocrat whose people have been oppressed for decades. Instead, he said Mr Kim had accepted his invitation to visit the White House at the “appropriate” time.
Light on specifics, the document signed by the two leaders amounted largely to an agreement to continue discussions.
Dr Nick Ritchie, a lecturer in international security at the University of York, said the meeting was “significant” and historic”, but added: “We’ve been down this road before, in the 1990s and the 2000s, and made varying degrees of progress. But what is new about this is the meeting of the leaders. We haven’t had that before. And the potential lies in the possibility of Kim and Trump building a reasonably trusting interpersonal relationship that can guide the process through the inevitable stormy waters that will be encountered.”
Dr Ritchie said Mr Kim had entered the summit “from a position of incredible weakness”, with the goal of diminishing what he saw as the permanent threat of a joint American and South Korean attack that would have destroyed his family’s ruling dynasty.
“They have taken their first baby steps on a process for potentially building some degree of trust to get a more serious and substantive process moving forward,” Dr Ritchie said.
The summit did not include an agreement to take steps towards ending the technical state of warfare between the US and North Korea. But the leaders promised in the document to “build a lasting and stable peace regime” on the Korean peninsula and to repatriate the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action during the Korean War.
THE HISTORIC handshake between President Donald Trump and the North Korean dictator Kim Jongun was more than just a symbolic moment – it represented a genuine hope of making the world a safer place.
For that, the accord apparently struck between these two impulsive and unpredictable leaders to free the Korean peninsula of the terrible threat posed by nuclear weapons is much to be welcomed.
And Mr Trump deserves full credit for pursuing a face-to-face meeting. Indeed, though Mr Trump is a more abrasive character than his predecessor Barack Obama – who was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace – the world should welcome this seeming breakthrough in diplomacy.
Yet a note of caution must be sounded. North Korea remains in possession of a fearsome nuclear arsenal, and the agreement with the United States is lacking in any independently verified guarantees that it will be destroyed.
And the very unpredictability and volatility of both leaders also raise serious questions about whether the agreement will hold.
Mr Kim has a long track record of reneging on deals, and only days ago, Mr Trump alienated and offended his closest allies in the G7 group of nations with angry outbursts on Twitter that repudiated a joint statement on co-operation.
Nevertheless, this must be a moment of hope that the meeting between the two marks the start of a meaningful process that reduces the threat of nuclear conflict.
If that proves to be the case, then Mr Trump will deserve the gratitude and admiration of the international community.