Pyongyang wants the U. S. to formally declare the end of the Korean War before it begins dismantling its nuclear arsenal. Officials said that was not part of the Singapore deal.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 North Korea is insisting that the United States declare that the Korean War is over before providing a detailed, written disclosure of all its atomic weapons stockpiles, its nuclear production facilities and its missiles as a first major step toward denuclearization.
Two months after President Trump declared his summit meeting in Singapore with Kim Jong-un a complete success, North Korea has not yet even agreed to provide that list during private exchanges with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to American and South Korean officials familiar with the talks.
Mr. Pompeo maintains progress is being made, although he has provided no details. But John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump\u2019s national security adviser, this week said, \u201cNorth Korea that has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize.\u201d
On Thursday, North Korea\u2019s state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, called the declaration of the end of the war \u201cthe demand of our time\u201d and that would be the \u201cfirst process\u201d in moving toward a fulfillment of the June 12 deal struck between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim. Pyonygang also wants peace treaty talks to begin before detailing its arsenal.
If the standoff over the parallel declarations remains, it is hard to see how the two countries can move forward with an agreement.
\u201cThe North Koreans have lied to us consistently for nearly 30 years,\u201d Joseph Nye, who wrote one of the National Intelligence Council\u2019s first assessments of the North\u2019s weapons programs in 1993, said at the Aspen Institute on Tuesday.
\u201cTrump is in a long tradition of American presidents who have been taken to the cleaners,\u201d Mr. Nye said.
Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Pompeo has acknowledged the impasse. But officials said South Korea has quietly backed the North Korean position, betting that once Mr. Trump has issued a \u201cpeace declaration\u201d it would be harder for him to later threaten military action if the North fails to disarm or discard its nuclear arsenal.
Against North Korea\u2019s continuing nuclear buildup \u2014 and its threats to strike the United States \u2014 Washington has long refused to formally declare the end of the war, which was halted with a 1953 armistice but never officially brought to a close.
And fears remain that making concessions to Pyongyang \u2014 especially after Mr. Trump shelved annual American military exercises with South Korea that he called \u201cwar games,\u2019\u2019 the phrase used by the North \u2014 would outrage Republicans in Congress and open Mr. Trump to charges that he has been outmaneuvered by the North Korean leader.
The White House has never reconciled Mr. Trump\u2019s post on Twitter after meeting Mr. Kim that \u201cthere is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea\u201d with Mr. Bolton\u2019s assessment that the Singapore agreement has so far yielded almost no progress in the nuclear arena. That view is shared by many in Congress and the American intelligence agencies.
For Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo, much rides on how this standoff is resolved \u2014 or whether it results in the collapse of what the president called his determination to \u201csolve\u201d the nuclear crisis.
Mr. Pompeo has told associates that he believes his tenure as secretary of state will be judged largely on how he handles the negotiations. In recent weeks he has softened some of his statements toward North Korea, saying the United States is open to a step-by-step approach that most officials had previously rejected.
\u201cThe ultimate timeline for denuclearization will be set by Chairman Kim,\u201d Mr. Pompeo said last week \u2014 a stark contrast to Mr. Trump\u2019s statements last year that North Korea should give up its weapons rapidly, or face tremendous, if unspecified, consequences.
Challenged about the lack of progress so far, officials at the White House and State Department pointed to three developments as signs that the strategy with North Korea is advancing.
They noted that North Korea has not conducted a missile or nuclear test since November. Since the Singapore summit, Pyongyang has returned the remains of about 55 Americans killed in the Korean War, which appear genuine, a good-will gesture though one unrelated to the nuclear program. And satellite evidence suggests North Korea has begun dismantling a test site where it has developed missile technologies and launched space satellite missions.
Experts cautioned, however, that all the steps taken so far are easily reversible, much as North Korea rebuilt a nuclear reactor after blowing up its cooling tower on television at the end of the George W. Bush administration.
\u201cI had low expectations about Singapore, which have been more than met,\u201d said Christopher Hill, who negotiated the accord that resulted in the blowing up of the reactor cooling tower. He noted that the agreement that Mr. Trump struck with Mr. Kim did not go beyond commitments the North had made to Presidents Clinton and Bush.
But Mr. Trump has retained his enthusiastic tone, apparently convinced he can persuade Mr. Kim to give up his weapons as long as the personal line remains open between the two leaders.
Mr. Pompeo has begun talking about keeping up sanctions pressure. But Mr. Trump has said little about his earlier promises of \u201cmaximum pressure\u2019\u2019 against Pyongyang, recently shifting his sanctions threats for Iran \u2014 which, unlike North Korea, has no nuclear weapons.
North Korea is continuing to advance its nuclear and missile capability, although in less dramatic and visible ways than last year\u2019s missile tests. Over the past two months, the North has expanded several significant programs critical to its continued production of nuclear material and the expansion of its nuclear stockpile.
While there is no agreement on how many nuclear weapons North Korea now owns, the C. I. A.\u2019s official estimate of around 20, issued when Mr. Trump came to office, is creeping up, officials said. The current estimates are closer to 40.
The Defense Intelligence Agency uses a larger figure of 60, but that assumes highly efficient production capabilities, which many experts doubt.
The wide variance in weapons estimates underscores the problem of knowing whether North Korea is actually giving up its arsenal. The declared listing of its current stockpiles and production facilities is meant as a critical first step, so that American intelligence agencies can compare it to their findings, and then challenge the North Koreans if they have not revealed suspected sites.
But the North Koreans have many reasons to balk at providing the declaration. They fear that once they identify locations of key facilities, the United States will use that information to target any pre-emptive strikes in the future. And they also fear that the declaration will put them on a pathway to giving everything up \u2014 or being charged with lying about the true scope of their program.
Some parts of that program are hard to hide. Analysts who study satellite images say the North is firing up a large new reactor \u2014 its second at Yongbyon, its top nuclear site. Such reactors make plutonium, a main fuel of nuclear arms. The new reactor, analysts say, can make four times more than the North\u2019s existing large reactor, which long supplied plutonium for its nuclear arsenal.
Last month in Senate testimony, Mr. Pompeo acknowledged that North Korea\u2019s plants \u201ccontinue to produce fissile material,\u201d the technical term for the fuel at the core of nuclear warheads.
Separately, American intelligence officials have found that the North is continuing to make long-range missiles at a sprawling manufacturing site just north of Pyongyang, according to news reports. Analysts who study satellite imagery say they see daily activity at the plant consistent with missile production.
Arms control experts say such work is unsurprising since North Korea has committed itself to few particular denuclearization steps. Stopping activity unilaterally, the experts say, would undermine its leverage in any coming arms negotiations.<\/p>\n

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