Stakes high for Pompeo's post-Singapore North Korea trip
THE White House confirmed Monday night that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to North Korea Thursday for the first time since last month's Singapore summit.
The trip comes amid media coverage of new US intelligence claims that Pyongyang has this year increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons even as it has engaged in intensive diplomacy with Washington, raising questions over the future of the negotiation process.
The revelations are an embarrassment for the White House after President Donald Trump's assertions last month that there "is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea". This is especially so since Pyongyang appears to have been trying to hide this increased fuel production at secret sites, while simultaneously seeking concessions from Washington, including ending US military drills with South Korea. Apparently acknowledging this on Sunday, Mr Trump was forced to concede that it is "possible" the talks with Pyongyang may "not work out".
A key reason why Mr Pompeo's visit is so important is that the Trump team now needs to re-establish, in light of the US intelligence reports, Pyongyang's readiness to engage in serious negotiations. He will be looking for credible evidence to support this, alongside tangible progress in securing the long-requested remains of US troops missing from the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Given the significant diplomatic investment that the Trump team has put into North Korea in recent weeks, it will also be key for Mr Pompeo to start fleshing out the Singapore summit agreement that both sides claim establishes a new era in bilateral relations. Key among the measures agreed is a commitment to "working towards the complete denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula.
It would be a remarkable achievement if Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are truly able to help preside over such a verifiable, comprehensive denuclearisation. While at the same time building a stable and lasting peace regime on the continent which would involve sealing a treaty between North and South to supplement the armistice ending the Korean War, and in the process de-escalate tensions in the world's last Cold War-era frontier.
Yet, much ambiguity remains in the Singapore text. Part of the challenge for the Trump team is clarifying this while managing expectations of the speed of delivery in 2018 and beyond.
On the one hand, the White House is looking for a big foreign policy win as soon as possible to crow about during the president's anticipated re-election campaign which kicks off in 2020. Yet, any final, comprehensive deal between Washington and Pyongyang could take longer.
The potential complexity and tough nature of the talks are as high as those conducted by the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal - much criticised by Mr Trump - which took years to negotiate. Indeed, the last round of those talks alone - between Tehran and the P5+1 (Washington, London, Beijing, Moscow, Paris and Berlin) - in 2015 lasted well over a week, the longest negotiation at a single site by a US secretary of state since at least the 1978 Camp David Agreement between Israel and Egypt.
With difficult and potentially long talks to come, Mr Trump would therefore benefit from a clearer strategy towards North Korea and indeed the peninsula at large. US National Security Adviser John Bolton previously sought to articulate a strategic approach when he talked about the "Libyan model" to North Korean disarmament which apparently spooked Mr Kim with its implicit reference to Muammar Gaddafi's fall from power after agreeing to dismantle his nascent nuclear weapons in 2003.
With the Libyan model now apparently cast aside, Mr Bolton referred Sunday to a plan to see full North Korean nuclear disarmament within 12 months. But Mr Pompeo has said he does not want to "put a timeline" on negotiations with Pyongyang.
Amid this apparent confusion, the reason why Mr Trump would benefit from a medium- to long-term strategy, rather than relying too much on his own immediate instincts, is that the next phases of negotiations have much complexity for the president around US alliances, the non-proliferation regime, and what exactly would constitute denuclearisation on the peninsula. One positive development here could be the swearing in on Saturday of retired navy admiral Harry Harris as the new US ambassador to South Korea, a key post which had remained vacant since Mr Trump took office.
Admiral Harris, who previously served as commander of US forces in the Pacific, has rightly warned that Washington needs its "eyes wide open" based on previous US attempts to get Pyongyang to denuclearise. This includes the six-party talks which collapsed in 2008, mainly because North Korea refused to allow inspectors to verify that it had shut down its nuclear programmes.
Several subsequent attempts have been made to restart the talks, but all failed. This included in 2012 when Pyongyang launched a missile two weeks after announcing a deal with Washington that had promised food aid in return for inspections and a moratorium on rocket tests.
As Admiral Harris is well aware, the success or failure of the post-Singapore summit talks is still likely to ultimately rest on the detail around Mr Kim's purported "commitment to denuclearisation". To Mr Trump, this appears to continue to mean unilateral disarmament.
Yet, for Mr Kim, it is much more about potentially lengthy negotiations in which North Korea should be treated as an equal to the United States, giving him further propaganda victories.
In this context, Mr Kim will probably remain wary about making concrete commitments on specific time frames, and would want to win further economic and political concessions from Mr Trump before any reduction in nuclear capabilities, let alone committing to full denuclearisation in its literal sense.
