That is what some in Washington D.C. are thinking:
Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un meet in Panmunjon on May 26.
When Donald Trump abruptly scrapped their planned summit, Kim Jong Un sought out someone he knew would come over for a chat: South Korean leader Moon Jae-in. (………….)
For now, Moon has maintained an appearance as a neutral middleman who can bridge the gap between Trump and Kim, two reactive leaders who create a high risk of miscalculation. Yet over the longer term, Moon’s desire to cut a peace deal with North Korea during his single five-year term means Trump could find it harder to enforce his “maximum pressure” campaign if talks break down again.
“There is a fine line between being an honest broker and being the North’s accomplice,” said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum in Honolulu. “There are some in Washington who are seeing Moon as the latter and this builds upon the distrust that any progressive leader carries with him.” [Bloomberg]
You can read more at the link, but if things turn out once again that North Korea gets aid and sanctions relief for little to nothing in return; the media and left will not think of Moon as an accomplice. Instead they will award Moon the Nobel Peace Prize just like they did with former President Kim Dae-jung.
Kim Dae-jung gave the North Koreans a $500 million bribe to hold the summit and yet many in the media and the left defend his legacy to this day. Arguably the bribe followed by nearly a decade of unconditional aid has sustained the Kim regime after the break up of the Soviet Union and allowed them to build their current nuclear arsenal.
However, maybe Moon will surprise us and he will convince Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons with his current bromance effort. If that is the case President Moon would definitely be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize and any other accolade people want to give him. I am however not getting my hopes up.
BREAKING: A team of U.S. officials led by Sung Kim crossed into North Korea today to hold summit preparation talks, despite uncertainty surrounding the June 12 Trump-Kim meeting. The North Korean delegation is led by vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui. https://t.co/eLPZiB68cCpic.twitter.com/XwRwNqYtxo
According President Moon, Kim Jong-un is committed to denuclearizing:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reaffirmed his willingness to denuclearize and hold a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Sunday.
“Chairman Kim Jong-un has once again clearly expressed his commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula following his pledge in the Panmunjom Declaration and expressed his willingness to end the history of war and confrontation through the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit,” Moon said of his latest summit with the North Korean leader held Saturday.
“We two leaders agreed the June 12 North Korea-U.S. summit must be successfully held,” he told a nationally televised press conference.
The latest inter-Korean summit was held on the North Korean side of Panmunjom, a border village that sits directly on the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas. The first Moon-Kim summit was held on the South Korean side of Panmunjom on April 27.
Trump on Thursday (Washington time) called off his scheduled summit with Kim, citing the North’s tremendous anger and open hostility, only to suggest later the meeting would go ahead as planned.
“While explaining the outcome of my summit with U.S. President Trump held last week, I relayed the message that President Trump is firmly willing to end his country’s hostile relationship with North Korea and enhance economic cooperation should Chairman Kim make a decision on complete denuclearization and implements it,” Moon said.
The South Korean president visited Washington on Monday-Wednesday. He said his surprise meeting with Kim came at a suggestion from the North Korean leader, who on Friday expressed hope to meet for candid dialogue.
“Also, as both Chairman Kim and President Trump sincerely wish for the success of the North-U.S. summit, I stressed the need for the two sides to remove any misunderstanding through direct communication and to hold enough dialogue on agenda issues that need to be addressed at their summit,” President Moon said, adding, “Chairman Kim also agreed.” (……..)
“Chairman Kim Jong-un once again clearly affirmed that his commitment to complete denuclearization remains firm yesterday. What remains uncertain to Chairman Kim Jong-un is whether he can trust the U.S. promise to end their hostile relationship and guarantee North Korea’s security once the North denuclearizes,” the president added. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but if Kim Jong-un wants to ensure a deal stays in place then he needs to have President Trump ratify a treaty with the Senate. If a deal is struck that is not ratified by the Senate then the next President can come in and not follow it. That is what President Trump did with the Iran deal. It would be interesting though in an election year for Congress how they would approach the ratification of a treaty with North Korea.
The South Korean ambassador to the US, Cho Yoon-je recently published an article in the Washington Post pretty much saying this time things are different with North Korea:
Cho Yoon-je
When North Korea announced last Wednesday that it was postponing high-level inter-Korea talks and might reconsider taking part in the planned summit with President Trump, pundits were quick to say North Korea was up to its old tricks. But my memory went back to a different moment. I recalled my days as a young economist at the International Monetary Fund in the late 1980s when Washington was debating the gloomy prospects of the Cold War. It was impossible to imagine that anything like peace could emerge during that dark time.
Today, the same pall is hovering over Washington regarding the seemingly dimmed hopes for the denuclearization of North Korea. One Korean expert pointed out to me that such skepticism in Washington is based on long-established habit; the world has tried everything, he noted, and Pyongyang has not given up its nuclear weapons no matter what. It is hard to argue against this viewpoint given North Korea’s record. And yet I would still contend that this time is different. That is why we must still give hope a chance, even though there are miles to go and the road will be bumpy.
Back in the 1980s, many in the West initially regarded the Soviet Union’s policies of economic reform and political openness, as well as its stated intention of nuclear arms reduction, with pronounced skepticism. Now we feel that same pessimism once again, this time in respect to North Korea. Some are advising Seoul and Washington that they should, instead, recall the opportunities that presented themselves in the second half of the 1980s. The grim history of the Cold War did not stop Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan from reaching for a chance at peace. [Washington Post]
You can read the rest at the link, but so far I have not seen anything different from the Kim regime so far. Everything so far has been spectacle and little substance which about sums up all past negotiations and agreements with the Kim regime.
Also an important fact that Mr. Cho failed to mention in his article is Reagan’s famous words of “Trust by Verify”. I seriously doubt the Trump administration is going to sign up for any denuclearization deal with the Kim regime that does not have strong verification protocols. When I see the Kim regime agree to nuclear material to be removed from the country and the Yongbyon nuclear plant irreversibly shut down under the supervision of international inspectors then I will say this time is different.
I think this is a sign of just how off balance President Trump has the Kim regime right now, that Kim Jong-un had to have an emergency summit with Moon Jae-in just to figure out how to move forward:
President Moon Jae-in has held a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the second time in a month on Saturday, holding a surprise summit at a border truce village to discuss Kim’s potential meeting with President Donald Trump, Moon’s office said.
Kim and Moon met hours after South Korea expressed relief over revived talks for a summit between Trump and Kim following a whirlwind 24 hours that saw Trump cancel the highly anticipated meeting before saying it’s potentially back on.
Moon, who brokered the summit between Washington and Pyongyang, likely used Saturday’s meeting to confirm Kim’s willingness to enter nuclear negotiations with Trump and clarify what steps Kim has in mind in the process of denuclearization, said Hong Min, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification. [Associated Press]
I can only imagine what they talked about, but I would not be surprised if the conversation included the fact that the usual playbook is not working on President Trump. The past strategy of the North Koreans giving little to nothing in return for massive aid and lifting of sanctions is clearly not going to happen this time. The Trump administration has made it pretty clear that real denuclearization is what will happen if a deal is to be done.
By the way does anyone want to provide their own caption of the below picture?:
In this photo provided by the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hold each other before parting after their second summit held at the border village of Panmunjom on May 26, 2018. (Yonhap)
It looks like the North Koreans are satisfied that they made their point to South Korea about how unhappy they are about the Ningpo 13 and have folded and allowed South Korean reporters to cover the upcoming dog and pony show at Punggye-ri:
South Korean journalists board a government plane on Wednesday at the Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, to fly to Wonsan, North Korea. [YONHAP]A group of eight South Korean journalists flew into North Korea on Wednesday afternoon after Pyongyang, at the last minute, accepted Seoul’s list of reporters to cover the dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
Eight journalists from two media outlets departed at around 12:30 p.m. from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on a South Korean government plane and flew directly to Kalma Airport in North Korea’s eastern port city of Wonsan.
After arriving in Wonsan, they joined journalists from four other countries – China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – to board a special train to head to the site of the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site to take place on Thursday or Friday. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Considering that JTBC was the lead network used to take out former President Park Geun-hye by finding the highly suspicious tablet computer, I would not be surprised at all if they are now trying to create a narrative that these defectors were kidnapped:
North Korean staff who fled a North Korean restaurant in China pose for a photo in this screen grab from CNN on May 12, 2016
The shift in the ministry’s attitude has made other defectors nervous. One woman who came to South Korea in 2008 and is raising a son here said, “I haven’t slept more than an hour a night since the inter-Korean summit. People like me who have been living quietly could be dragged off to North Korea any moment.”
Some 31,500 North Korean defectors live in South Korea, and many are feeling unsure of their status amid the thaw. They have been seen as having the potential to build bridges between the two sides if the two Koreas reunify but could now find themselves treated as obstacles to the smooth running of the political machine.
They are complaining about the South Korean government’s indifference and ostracism by other South Koreans. To them, it would be a devastating signal if some of the restaurant staff are sent back to the North. (……………)
Meanwhile, the women who appeared in the JTBC report are living in fear, scared that their identities and whereabouts may be exposed. They have claimed that their comments were taken out of context in the JTBC report.
Civic groups supporting North Korean defectors also said their comments were not portrayed accurately. They simply said they miss their homes and wish to see their parents, but the report made it sound as if they were forced to come to South Korea against their will.
Kim Byung-Jo at the Korea National Defense University said, “North Korean defectors really know the good and bad points of both Koreas. It is important for the government to ensure that they do not feel nervous.” [Chosun Ilbo]
Remember the 12 North Korean restaurant workers that defected to South Korea that infuriated the Kim regime? Well it appears the Moon administration may be laying the ground work to send them back:
North Korea runs dozens of restaurants in other countries as a valuable source of income
South Korea says it will look closer into the circumstances surrounding the arrival of a dozen North Korean restaurant workers in 2016 after a television report suggested some of the women might have been brought to the South against their will.
Unification Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun on Friday did not provide a clear answer on whether the women could be sent back to the North if it’s confirmed they didn’t want to come to South Korea.
Seoul had previously said it sufficiently confirmed the women’s free will in escaping from the North and resettling in the South. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I am not sure what else there is to examine on this issue. The 12 defectors have been resettled in South Korea and nothing is stopping them from going to a local television station and claim they were kidnapped. The Kim regime has been using their leftist lawyer allies in South Korea, the group call Minbyun, to claim that the the 12 restaurant workers were kidnapped by the ROK National Intelligence Service (NIS). Since their defection Minbyun has been making life very hard for the refugees anyway they can.
Now it appears that the Moon administration may be putting pressure on these 12 restaurant workers to return to North Korea as well. I would not be surprised if the Moon administration is also putting pressure the other high profile defector Thae Yong-ho to keep silent during the Kim regime’s current charm offensive as well.
