Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should establish one precondition for new talks with the North Korean leader.
This is important in light of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s comment on Thursday that Kim Jong Un “said he hoped Mike Pompeo would visit North Korea soon, and also a second summit with Trump would take place in the near future, in order to move the denuclearization process along quickly.” Moon made those comments following a meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang.
First off, it’s important to note that a new summit between President Trump and Kim should be out of the question at present. While Trump was right to originally meet with Kim in Singapore this June, a new summit now would offer Kim a massive diplomatic victory at the cost of Trump’s credibility. In short, it would give Kim the upper hand both in international diplomacy and also in relation to his dealings with Trump. In that same vein, neither should Pompeo return to North Korean soil unless Kim Jong Un first proves his sincerity about moving the diplomatic process forward. The facts on the ground show why U.S. resolution is necessary.
While Moon is now overtly appeasing Kim’s regime, North Korea continues to develop the means to deploy a credible nuclear strike force against the U.S. homeland. Kim has done nothing of consequence to suspend his research of intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear warhead technologies. This activity wholly conflicts with the spirit of the Singapore declaration that Kim signed after meeting with Trump.
So what should Pompeo ask for in return for a new visit to Pyongyang?
He should request a symbol of North Korean amenability towards reaching an eventual agreement. Namely, Pompeo should seek Kim’s commitment to allow International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear weapons inspectors to conduct site visits to perhaps five key North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear facilities. The U.S. has been pushing for this action for months now, but Kim has refused (beyond offering the IAEA inspections of no-longer-operational sites). And while inspecting only five or six key sites would do little to develop a fuller accounting of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, it would signal Kim’s willingness to make tough choices against the advice of hardliner advisers such as Kim Yong Chol. It would also educate North Korea to the U.S. expectation that this diplomatic process must speed up.
Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that it is in the material U.S. interest that the North Korean nuclear threat be resolved in a timely and peaceful manner. But we must be realistic here. Every time the Trump administration gives the North Koreans a gift of diplomatic deference without requiring functional reciprocity, it weakens the U.S. ability to constrain Kim’s threat. Put simply, the time has come for Pompeo to show that his Korea diplomacy is more than a sum of good intentions.
