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Kim Myong-gil

Since the North Korea-US working-level talks in Stockholm broke down on Oct. 5, the North Korea issue has almost completely disappeared from Washington. After the second North Korea-US summit in Hanoi this past February ended without an agreement, there were considerable expectations for the working-level talks, which took place three months after the dramatic meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Panmunjom at the end of June. But Trump has stayed quiet about the issue since the talks ended without any results.

A city replete with think tanks, Washington’s only event related to North Korea-US affairs to be held in the two weeks after the rupture in the Stockholm negotiations was a lecture by Joseph Yun, former US special representative for North Korean policy, at the Institute for Korean Studies of George Washington University on Oct. 14. Americans in the audience at the lecture told me that “no one seems interested in North Korea-US dialogue” and “the only thing we’re hearing from the conservatives is that more pressure should be placed on North Korea.”

Repetition of pattern of deadlock, negotiations, and breakdown inevitably fosters skepticism

The reason for this apathy in Washington is the belief that the working-level talks represent yet another recapitulation of the long-standing pattern of deadlock, negotiations, and breakdown. The repetition of this pattern inevitably fosters skepticism. The working-level talks reconfirmed that there’s a wide chasm between the North Korean and American positions, another reason for pessimism in Washington. North Korea and the US are at loggerheads over what should come first — steps toward denuclearization or incentives for the same. When the US is demanding definite progress on denuclearization and North Korea is saying that it’s already done enough and wants sanctions relief and a security guarantee, there doesn’t seem to be much room for compromise.

The two sides also disagree about the method of dialogue: North Korea wants the big decisions to be made in a summit between Kim and Trump, while the US insists that all the disagreements must be ironed out in working-level talks before moving on to a summit. The only consolation is that the two sides haven’t rejected the idea of dialogue altogether even as they pressure each other to make major concessions.

It’s hard to say where the latest pause in North Korea-US dialogue will take us. For one thing, the situation in the US is becoming more chaotic with every day. Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry by the Democratic Party and is also being sharply challenged over his decision to pull US troops out of Syria not only by Democrats but by fellow Republicans. While Trump has bragged about a preliminary deal to the farmers in his base, the substance of the US-China trade talks remains unclear. The political parties and press are warming up for next year’s presidential election. It’s inevitable that the North Korea issue will be moved to the back burner. Amid such confusion, Trump has nothing to lose if he can maintain North Korea’s moratorium on ICBM launches and nuclear weapons tests until the election in November 2020.

But North Korea isn’t likely to remain quiet. Since the North has told the US it has until the end of the year to think over its options, the North will be left with little choice but to take action that’s bolder than its recent short-range ballistic missile tests at the year’s end. Joseph Yun said that North Korea might launch a satellite at the end of this year or the beginning of the next. Such a test would raise tensions by essentially posing a comparable threat to an ICBM test (which the US regards as a red line) without actually being one. There are conflicting views in the US about how Trump would respond if North Korea becomes more belligerent: some think he might return to the “fire and fury” era of 2017, while others think he would avoid a military confrontation and engage in dialogue. If we throw in the variables of the domestic situation in the US (including the impeachment and presidential election) and Trump’s impulsive personality, the forecast becomes even cloudier.

Ultimately, North Korea and the US must end the current pause and return to dialogue before long if they wish to stop the situation from deteriorating and keep it under control. The inescapable reality is that the momentum for that can only be created by Trump and Kim themselves, and not by their lower-level negotiators.

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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