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NKOREA-US-DIPLOMACY-SUMMIT
Trump and Kim head for historic Singapore summit
SINGAPORE, June 10, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump were
heading for Singapore on Sunday for an unprecedented summit in an attempt to
address the last festering legacy of the Cold War, with the US President
calling it a “one time shot” at peace.
Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal — which has seen it subjected to several sets
of UN Security Council sanctions and threatened with military action by the
Trump administration — will top the agenda.
Bringing the Korean War to a formal end 65 years after hostilities ceased
will also be on the table at the first-ever summit between a North Korean
leader and a sitting president of its “imperialist enemy”.
The North Korean leader was due to meet Singaporean President Lee Hsien
Loong later on Sunday, the city-state’s foreign ministry said, while Trump
was flying from Canada on board Air Force One after leaving the G7 summit
early.
Authorities imposed tight security around the summit venue and related
luxury hotels — including installing extra pot plants outside one contender
for Kim’s accommodation to obstruct reporters’ views.
Tuesday’s Singapore meeting is the climax of the astonishing flurry of
diplomacy on and around the Korean peninsula this year, but critics charge
that it risks being largely a triumph of style over substance.
Washington is demanding the complete, verifiable and irreversible
denuclearisation (CVID) of the North, while Pyongyang has so far only made
public pledges of its commitment to the denuclearisation of the peninsula —
a term open to wide interpretation — while seeking security guarantees.
Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage expected little
progress on the key issue of defining denuclearisation.
“The success will be in the shutter clicks of the cameras,” he said. “They
both get what they want.”
Trump insisted last week that the summit would “not be just a photo op”,
saying it would help forge a “good relationship” that would lead to a
“process” towards the “ultimate making of a deal”.
But as he embarked for Singapore he changed his tune, calling it a “one-
time shot” and adding he will know “within the first minute” whether an
agreement will be possible.
“If I think it won’t happen, I’m not going to waste my time,” he said.
He has also dangled the prospect of Kim Jong Un visiting Washington if the
meeting goes well.
But even the merit of the event itself — long sought by the North, and
which Trump apparently impulsively agreed to in March, reportedly without
consulting his advisers — has been called into question.
“People call it a historic summit but… it is important to understand
that this summit was available to any US president who wanted to do it and
the point is no US president wanted to do this, and for good reasons,” said
Christopher Hill, a former lead US nuclear negotiator with North Korea.
– Decades of tensions –
The two countries have been at loggerheads for decades.
The North invaded the South in 1950 and the ensuing war saw US-led UN
troops backing Seoul fight their way to a stalemate against Pyongyang’s
forces which were aided by Russia and China, before the conflict ended in
stalemate and an armistice which sealed the division of the peninsula.
Sporadic provocations by the North have continued while Pyongyang has made
increasing advances in its nuclear arsenal, which it says it needs to defend
against the risk of a US invasion.
Last year it carried out by far its most powerful nuclear test to date and
launched missiles capable of reaching the US mainland, sending tensions
soaring to a level unseen in years as a newly-elected Trump traded threats of
war and colourful personal insults with Kim, with Trump dubbed a “dotard” and
Kim “Little Rocket Man”.
But the South’s Winter Olympics in February catalysed a flurry of
diplomatic moves as Seoul’s dovish leader Moon Jae-in sought to bring the two
sides together.
Kim has met twice with both Moon and Xi Jinping, the president of China,
long the North’s most important ally.
Pyongyang has taken some steps to show sincerity, returning US detainees
and blowing up its nuclear test site.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that progress was being
made in bringing the two sides together in their understanding of
denuclearisation.
But Trump — for whom a major accomplishment would bolster his position
ahead of midterm elections in November — baffled observers when he said he
did not think he had to prepare “very much” for the summit.
“It’s about attitude,” Trump said. “So this isn’t a question of
preparation.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/1235 hrs