N. Korea-U.S. Summit cancellation not a surprise: Experts
- 6 years ago
북미정상회담 취소, 놀랍지 않다: 미 전문가들
Some perceive Trump's shocking decision an impulsive one.
But there are those who believe it is a calculated move, perhaps even a negotiation strategy
Oh Soo-young help us find out if there's a method to his madness.
The sudden cancellation of the North Korea-U.S. summit may have been a sudden decision, but it wasn't entirely a surprise.
Experts on North Korea told Arirang News Friday it was clear both sides lacked working-level preparations for a meeting on June 12th.
"I think the American side particularly wasn't ready. Donald Trump wasn't focusing on this very much. He was interested in the drama and theatre of it. But it wasn't clear the president was doing the research in the time and the study necessary to actually debate these complex issues with the North. North Korea's behavior in the last couple of weeks didn't help. They stood up American negotiators in Singapore, they just left them standing there for three days in a row. The whole thing was just going too fast."
Without sufficient back-channel talks, major sticking points remain unresolved.
According to some experts, that is why both Washington and Pyongyang, over the past week, indicated they may call the summit off.
"There's a little gamesmanship going on here. In Trump's case, a lot of the critics were saying he seems to eager for the summit, so he's playing hard to get. And the North Koreans have a history of also playing hard to get. North Koreans said they would walk out if the U.S. was forcing them to denuclearize."
Pyongyang has called for a gradual process of scrapping its nukes -- an approach Washington has resisted, given the North's track record of breaking promises and backing out of verifying its nuclear dismantlement.
"My strong hunch is serious people are working on the U.S side, we want to have the North stop producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium. That's the first order of business. We probably want to have the second location of the enrichment site told to us early on.... some declaration of how much high enriched uranium and plutonium it has produced and how many nuclear weapons they have. They don't have to do this right at the summit but it is the key, critical early step."
North Korea, on its part, is also likely to demand concrete steps from the U.S. -- first and foremost, a security guarantee for its ruling regime.
"They want to make sure if they do give up some of their nuclear weapons program, the Americans won't attack them. I think the U.S. will have some trouble credibly committing to North Korean security, which is why the North Koreans will never go to zero. The Libyan model didn't work out very well for the Libyans, right? So the Americans need to make a set of reasonable offers that the North Koreans might buy and they comeback with some things that we want. Besides a security guarantee, I imagine they would want a sanctions relief. Economic assistance, and diplomatic normalization."
Before a
Some perceive Trump's shocking decision an impulsive one.
But there are those who believe it is a calculated move, perhaps even a negotiation strategy
Oh Soo-young help us find out if there's a method to his madness.
The sudden cancellation of the North Korea-U.S. summit may have been a sudden decision, but it wasn't entirely a surprise.
Experts on North Korea told Arirang News Friday it was clear both sides lacked working-level preparations for a meeting on June 12th.
"I think the American side particularly wasn't ready. Donald Trump wasn't focusing on this very much. He was interested in the drama and theatre of it. But it wasn't clear the president was doing the research in the time and the study necessary to actually debate these complex issues with the North. North Korea's behavior in the last couple of weeks didn't help. They stood up American negotiators in Singapore, they just left them standing there for three days in a row. The whole thing was just going too fast."
Without sufficient back-channel talks, major sticking points remain unresolved.
According to some experts, that is why both Washington and Pyongyang, over the past week, indicated they may call the summit off.
"There's a little gamesmanship going on here. In Trump's case, a lot of the critics were saying he seems to eager for the summit, so he's playing hard to get. And the North Koreans have a history of also playing hard to get. North Koreans said they would walk out if the U.S. was forcing them to denuclearize."
Pyongyang has called for a gradual process of scrapping its nukes -- an approach Washington has resisted, given the North's track record of breaking promises and backing out of verifying its nuclear dismantlement.
"My strong hunch is serious people are working on the U.S side, we want to have the North stop producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium. That's the first order of business. We probably want to have the second location of the enrichment site told to us early on.... some declaration of how much high enriched uranium and plutonium it has produced and how many nuclear weapons they have. They don't have to do this right at the summit but it is the key, critical early step."
North Korea, on its part, is also likely to demand concrete steps from the U.S. -- first and foremost, a security guarantee for its ruling regime.
"They want to make sure if they do give up some of their nuclear weapons program, the Americans won't attack them. I think the U.S. will have some trouble credibly committing to North Korean security, which is why the North Koreans will never go to zero. The Libyan model didn't work out very well for the Libyans, right? So the Americans need to make a set of reasonable offers that the North Koreans might buy and they comeback with some things that we want. Besides a security guarantee, I imagine they would want a sanctions relief. Economic assistance, and diplomatic normalization."
Before a