3 Big Questions for the Two North Korea Summits
April 23, 2018 in Economics
By Eric Gomez
Eric Gomez
The diplomatic events of the decade are rapidly approaching.
Later this week, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea will meet
with Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom for the first inter-Korean summit
since 2007. Shortly thereafter Kim will have a
summit with President Donald Trump—the first such meeting
between the sitting leaders of North Korea and the United
States.
A steady stream of news and speculation has preceded the
summits. Over the course of three days last week, Trump revealed
that CIA director Mike Pompeo made a secret
visit to North Korea around Easter to speak with Kim about the
upcoming U.S. summit, South Korea announced that it is working to
negotiate a peace treaty to officially end the Korean
War, and Moon suggested that Kim would not demand the removal of U.S. troops from South Korea in
return for denuclearization. For analysts and lay observers alike
these developments raise some big questions that need to be
answered in the two upcoming summits.
What Is Kim Jong-un Prepared to Give Up?
The most important issue up for discussion at the two summits is
the denuclearization of North Korea. Kim indicated a general
willingness to discuss denuclearization in talks with South Korean officials after the
Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, but he has not provided many details
about what denuclearization means for the North in
the context of the upcoming summits. Getting more details from Kim
about what he is willing to give up should be Moon and
Trump’s first priority.
Hopefully both summits
will be successful and the parties can begin the long and difficult
work of resolving this crisis and achieving lasting peace in
Northeast Asia, but success is not a foregone
conclusion.
Nuclear weapons are Pyongyang’s ultimate insurance against
regime change, and it is difficult to imagine Kim agreeing to
dismantle his nuclear program without significant concessions and assurances from Washington and
Seoul. Despite recent reports suggesting North Korea could accept a
U.S. troop presence on the peninsula, effective reassurance will
likely require some reduction in American military posture in South
Korea.
A recent report in the South Korean press said that Pyongyang
asked for a withdrawal of U.S. “nuclear and strategic
assets” from the peninsula. Keeping nuclear weapons out of
South Korea is an easy demand to satisfy since the United States
withdrew the last of its forward-deployed
nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991. However, the withdrawal
of “strategic assets” is a thornier issue because the
North has not publicly provided any details about what capabilities
fall under this category. The United States …read more
Source: OP-EDS
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