Ankit Panda writes that Pyongyang saw the declaration signed by Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump solely as a statement of intent to improve relations with the US
It should surprise no one that the United States and North Korea have run into hiccups in their latest bout of diplomatic rapprochement.
Since signing a vague statement at their Singapore summit meeting on June 12, both US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have left the business of implementation to their respective deputies.
So far, talks to see through the vision expressed in the fuzzy Singapore declaration have not gone well. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to Pyongyang – his third overall and second in his current role – showed why.
In Pyongyang, Pompeo committed the cardinal sin, in North Korea’s view: he insisted on Kim Jong-un’s unilateral disarmament.
After his departure, the North Korean Foreign Ministry issued a statement that chided the US state secretary’s “gangster-like” insistence on unilateral disarmament. It asserted that not only was North Korea not interested in this condition, but it ran counter to the spirit of the Singapore declaration.
The North Koreans have a point. However else they might choose to deceive the US in talks, their negotiating position has been crystal clear.
Even as early as May 16, Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea’s first vice-minister of foreign affairs, noted that “if the US is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-US summit”.
Accordingly, the statement signed in Singapore, contrary to what Pompeo or Trump might have insisted upon, did not make reference to the unilateral disarmament of North Korea. Instead, it committed North Korea to work “toward the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.
