In Vietnam, US must not offer premature concessions to North Korea

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

During his State of the Union address, President Trump announced that his second summit with Kim Jong un will occur on Feb. 27 and 28 in Vietnam. But as the recently released Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community has noted, “North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, even as it seeks to negotiate partial denuclearization steps to obtain key U.S. and international concessions.” As such, to maximize prospects for success, the Trump administration needs a defined game plan that accounts for likely intransigence from Pyongyang.

The planned summit comes in the wake of significant U.S. sanctions on North Korea and its enablers. The Trump administration issued 156 sanctions designations in its first 16 months. (By contrast, the Obama administration issued only 154 in eight years.) Notably, targets included not only North Korean actors but also non-North Korean companies and individuals facilitating Pyongyang’s sanctions-busting schemes. This pressure likely helped persuade Pyongyang to return to talks.

At the same time, North Korea’s highly visible progress in nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development likely provided Kim with a confidence boost to finally engage the U.S. Specifically, Kim Jong Un has publicly stated numerous times that North Korea completed its nuclear force.

Overall, these developments make it difficult to assess whether Kim’s push for diplomacy stems from a strategic decision to dismantle his nuclear arsenal. But if the first summit in Singapore is any indication, Kim may still be interested more in deceptive and duplicitous diplomacy than in good-faith negotiations that could lead to denuclearization.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/429966-in-vietnam-us-must-not-offer-premature-concessions-to-north-korea

Kim knows that all he has to do is butter Trump up and he can get anything he wants.

[watoos]

1. Kim isn't giving up his nukes.

How will we know what was discussed, there won't be any records made public? We will have to take Trump's word what went on.

[soryang]

2. Absolutely no relief on sanctions guarantees failure

Marginal sanctions relief on a step by step basis with substantial concessions from the North on denuclearization, allowing inspectors to verify denuclearization steps, etc., is a way to proceed with negotiations.

The sanctions waivers that South Korea needs to reopen Kumgansang, and Kaesong are a good starting point. The North needs to deliver to get those.

The North doesn't really have any hard and set demands regarding US troop withdrawal, that issue concerns the deployment of "strategic assets," like aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and long range bombers. The US has a nuclear strike capability that can reach anywhere in the world, with or without the visibility of such assets in the immediate region.

Conducting massive military joint military exercises in their neighborhood is obviously a reason for them not to denuclearize and US military leadership understands that as well.

The notion that South Korea might have objected to the suspension of joint military exercises by Trump after the first summit is absurd. This is what the South Korean administration wanted.

There is an inherent conflict between maintaining the greatest possible sanctions and proposals for normalization of relations with the US. These kinds of contradictions are typical of US Asia policies in which the left hand doesn't like what the right hand is doing.

Linking denuclearization negotiations to human rights issues in North Korea is another formula for failed talks. The idea that lobby groups in the UN and the US, and political opposition in Korea itself care or know more about human rights abuses or what to do about them than the current administration in South Korea is off base as well.