On Sunday, Donald Trump became the first sitting American President to have stepped into North Korea. After a historic handshake with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas, President Trump crossed the demarcation line. The two leaders walked a few metres on the North Korean side and then crossed back and had talks. They have decided to resume stalled nuclear talks.
Nobody had foreseen this summit coming. Mr. Trump was in Osaka, Japan, over the weekend, attending the G-20 summit. North Korea had launched a broadside against U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the South Korean leadership in recent weeks over the U.S. sanctions and stalled talks. Nuclear negotiations had broken down after the Hanoi summit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim in February failed to produce any result. Then came Mr. Trump’s tweet early on Saturday, offering to meet Mr. Kim at the DMZ, which led to a sudden burst of diplomatic activities.
The only way forward
This shows Mr. Trump is convinced that the only way to achieve his goal — denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula — is diplomacy. A war with North Korea would be catastrophic. North Korea is a nuclear power that boasts long-range ballistic missiles with the U.S. in their range. The North has also stationed thousands of pieces of ready-to-fire artillery along the DMZ that could target Seoul, the South Korean capital with a population of 10 million that lies roughly 50 km from the border. U.S. troops deployed in East Asia could also be targeted.
The American President seems to have ruled out the military option completely. Ever since his Singapore summit with Mr. Kim last year, Mr. Trump, otherwise known for his incendiary tweets and threats, has stayed away from rhetoric on North Korea. On Sunday, after holding talks with Mr. Kim for nearly an hour, he said “speed is not the object. We want to see if we can do a really comprehensive, good deal.”
Mr. Kim, on the other side, has also shown interest in engaging with the U.S. and opening up the North’s economy, which needs relief from sanctions. Also, North Korea’s nuclear programme is primarily rooted in deterrence, not in expansionism. So, at least in theory, a deal is possible if the North’s security concerns are addressed and sanctions are removed. In this context, Mr. Trump’s persistent diplomatic outreach appears to be the most practical approach in dealing with the Korean nuclear crisis.
Two challenges
Mr. Kim has in principle agreed on denuclearisation. But when and how it should be done is the key issue of contention. When negotiating teams of both countries sit down to address this issue, they will face two strategic challenges. One is the historic mistrust between the two nations. North Korea, especially, believes that they were betrayed by the U.S. several times beginning the Korean war. In the 1990s, North Korea and the U.S. (Clinton administration) had signed the ‘Agreed Framework’ to freeze the North’s nuclear activities. But Pyongyang pulled out of it when the George W. Bush administration turned hostile towards it. So what guarantee does the North have this time that another administration would not turn against it even if it reaches an agreement with President Trump?
Two, Mr. Trump’s other foreign policy decisions would hardly assure the North Koreans. He pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, which his predecessor Barack Obama signed with Tehran and other world powers. Iran agreed to scuttle its nuclear programme under the agreement in return for the lifting of sanctions. The Trump administration is now on a warpath with Iran, with U.S.-imposed sanctions squeezing the country. Another example is Libya, whose leader Muammar Qaddafi gave up his nuclear programme in return for a rapprochement with the West. NATO attacked Libya in 2011 in the wake of Arab protests and Qaddafi was killed by the rebels.
The North Korean regime knows that its nuclear weapons are its greatest insurance against a potential regime change war. While Mr. Trump’s diplomatic outreach keeps the possibility for a deal alive, he will have to address the contradictions in his foreign policy doctrine to clinch it.
