North Korea is reconsidering holding a summit with Donald Trump, a senior diplomat said May 14. Past deals with the West—in 1985, 1995, and 2005—have also fallen apart. [...]
Soon after secretary of state Mike Pompeo returned from Pyongyang last week, it seemed clear that Kim had “made a commitment, in his mind, to get rid of part of his program in order to get sanctions relief and economic aid,” says Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at CNA, a Virginia research group, who has written three books on North Korean leadership. Indeed, on May 11, Pompeo said that conversations between him and Kim were “warm.” South Korea’s foreign minister said it had been “very clear that the sanctions [would] remain in place until and unless we see visible, meaningful action taken by North Korea on the denuclearization track.” [...]
But the US’s public demands quickly morphed. Two days after his post-Pyongyang presser, Pompeo said in an interview with CBS the the US expected “complete and total denuclearization of North Korea, and it is the President’s intention to achieve that.” He added that the US would lift sanctions and allow private US investors into the country “if we get denuclearization.” The same day, he told Fox News: “If we get what it is the President has demanded–the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea,” rewards could include electricity and infrastructure investment “in spades.”
No comments:
Post a Comment