North Korea testing US with threats to call off summit meet

Confusion has emerged as North Korea recently threatened to pull out of the June 12 summit — scheduled between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — in Singapore. In a statement, North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan has said if the US “corners us and unilaterally demands we give up nuclear weapons we will no longer have an interest in talks and will have to reconsider whether we will accept the upcoming DPRK-US summit.” The statement has caught the Trump administration by surprise with President Trump offering no comment on the summit other than a “we’ll have to wait and see”. Meanwhile, Seoul has stepped in to “mediate” in what it calls “some kind of difference in stances” between the US and North Korea.  

President Trump would be especially shocked at the turn of events as everything seemed scheduled for successful meeting with Kim Jong-un. After the successful meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas, Kim and Moon Jae-in on April 27, Trump had confirmed the June 12 schedule for the meeting.  “We will both try to make it a very special movement for World Peace!” he said, and added: “I think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful. My proudest achievement will be — this is part of it — when we denuclearise that entire peninsula.” 

The highly anticipated first-ever meeting between a serving US President and a North Korean leader has been in the making since March 8 when President Trump accepted the invitation to meet Kim. Since then, calibrated efforts had been taken to ensure the success of the meeting. The goodwill in the run-up to the summit was enhanced with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s secret visit to North Korea and the release of three Americans by the Kim regime who had earlier detained them for more than a year on charges of espionage and hostile acts against North Korea. The venue of the meeting – Singapore – was also taken to ensure a high comfort level for both sides. This was given the fact that while the US enjoys close ties with Singapore, North Korea also has strong diplomatic ties with Singapore. North Korea had also recently announced that it would dismantle its nuclear testing site in a ceremony between May 23 and 25 and had invited journalists from the US, South Korea, Russia and China to watch. This was seen as Kim’s ardent desire to improve ties with the US. 

The change of heart is all the more mysterious as Pyongyang has a lot at stake in a summit meeting with the US President. Ever since the Trump administration came to power, the US has tightened efforts to penalise North Korea for its nuclear programme by imposing new economic and other sanctions on it. 
Trump administration officials, including the President, also emphasised a possible preventive military attack which significantly alarmed the Kim regime. Then, the ongoing trade war between the US and China, and Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the nuclear deal with Iran, had also made North Korea think that it needed to take measures to reduce tension with Washington. 

Korea watchers also claim that Kim had been vying for a summit meeting with Trump for some time now as Pyongyang expected talks between Kim and Trump would result in North Korea being treated on an equal footing with the US, and would ensure the complete removal of the US’s threat to use military power against it. Korea watchers also say the Kim regime hopes the meeting would result in the removal of the American economic sanctions on North Korea, which is very crucial in stabilising the North Korean economy. On the other hand, the US, which once believed that with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, North Korea would also collapse, wants permanent, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula. Since South Korea is trying to see that peace should be fostered with North Korea and the US administration wants to be seen as the peace-maker with North Korea, President Trump is under pressure to see that his meeting with Kim — should it go ahead as planned — results in a win-win situation for both sides. 

But North Korea’s seeming change of heart has changed all that. Not only has Pyongyang ruled out the possibility of complete denuclearisation, it also cancelled a scheduled meeting with South Korea on Wednesday on account of the ongoing joint military exercises between South Korea and the US. Thus, at a time when things were appearing set for an encouraging outcome from the Trump-Kim meeting, North Korea’s strong reaction has once again underscored the continued and deep distrust between the two countries.

While no one is certain, North Korea’s latest move may be just “posturing” as it too has a lot to lose from not having a summit. Perhaps they may be testing Trump’s resolve on “complete denuclearisation” to see if he will soften, perhaps they are looking to see if other concessions will be made by the US to ensure the summit goes ahead. In any case, the ball is in Trump’s court now and it remains to be seen just how he will play.                  

The author is Visiting Fellow, National Chengchi University. Views are personal.