South Korea’s top diplomat in Washington believes President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will hold a second summit in 2019 and says progress on denuclearization can come despite a lack of momentum since the two first met in Singapore last June.
“Yes, since the Singapore summit meeting, the pace of the denuclearization talks has slowed some and I hear concerns about the reports of continued activities in North Korea’s nuclear production sites,” South Korean Ambassador Cho Yoon-je said in rare public remarks Wednesday. ” … But our leaders remain determined and engaged. We have a year of diplomacy behind us and most certainly ahead of us.”
His comments came amid speculation over the extent to which China — the North Korean leader’s closest ally — will support that diplomacy over the coming months.
Mr. Kim left the Chinese capital Wednesday after two days of meetings aimed at strengthening North Korea-China coordination ahead of a second Trump-Kim summit. Mr. Kim is reportedly is pressing China, a permanent U.N. Security Council member, for a reduction of economic sanctions against Pyongyang.
The Trump administration has vowed to keep such sanctions in place until the North verifiably abandons its nuclear weapons.
Speaking at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, Mr. Cho cast a positive light on that prospect Wednesday, although he cautioned that it “may take years” to achieve.
“The most important thing,” the ambassador added, “is for our two countries to maintain close coordination and keep a united front throughout the process.”
He declined to comment, however, on one potentially mounting source of friction between Washington and Seoul: Mr. Trump’s demand that South Korea bear significantly more of the cost of its own defense, including the expense of the roughly 30,000 American troops based in the nation. The two sides recently failed to reach a new burden-sharing agreement by a Jan. 1 deadline.
Diplomatic sources say South Korean President Moon Jae-in has indicated a willingness to pay slightly more than the current $850 million it puts toward the U.S. troop presence annually, but not as much as the some $1.2 billion being demanded by the Trump administration.
The issue threatens to drive a wedge between the two allies that North Korea can exploit, analysts said.
By failing to resolve the troop payments issue, “we are ceding the narrative to North Korea and Kim Jong-un and ceding it to China,” said Patrick Cronin, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Others fear Mr. Trump may seek to drag the issue out until his second summit with Mr. Kim. South Korea’s concern, according to one diplomatic source, is that Mr. Trump might leave Seoul out of negotiations with Mr. Kim on reducing U.S. troops levels — a long-sought North Korean goal.
David Maxwell, a retired Army Special Forces colonel and North Korea analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said such concerns may be warranted. “The worst-case scenario is that Trump and Kim meet and Kim says, ’Look, I want to make progress on denuclearization and focus on economics, but it’s the threat of U.S. forces in South Korea that holds me back.’”
According to Mr. Maxwell, the North Korean leader might argue that since South Korea is not paying its fair share for defense, it would be expeditious for the president to remove U.S. troops in exchange for an end to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
“The enticement for Trump would be that then there’s no more threat to the U.S. homeland from North Korea, all while he gets to say he brought home U.S. troops and gets to stop paying for expensive war games in the region,” said Mr. Maxwell. “To me this is a really dangerous possibility.”
Mr. Cho, a soft-spoken but seasoned diplomat who previously served as ambassador to the United Kingdom, focused instead Wednesday on the “unprecedented” progress of the past year, including a halt to missile and nuclear testing by the North and the apparent closing of research and testing sites.
“I think 2019 will be more important than 2018 in determining” the success of the diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang, the ambassador said. “It may test our patience and our ability to stand strong, but as long as we keep our faith in diplomacy and maintain rock-solid coordination between Seoul and Washington, I believe we will be able to make more and bigger steps.”
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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