Seoul urges caution on North Korea ahead of envoys’ US visit

Bloomberg

South Korean President Moon Jae-in tried to tamp down expectations for his planned summit with Kim Jong Un, as he prepared to send envoys to Washington to discuss their meeting with the North Korean leader.
“This is just a start, and we can’t be optimistic just yet,” Moon told leaders of five South Korean political parties in Seoul on Wednesday. He said he was in close contact with US President Donald Trump and
believed he had a positive view on the envoys’ trip to Pyongyang.
Trump signalled he’s open to talks with North Korea, even as his advisers expressed skepticism that Kim was serious about suspending his nuclear weapons program and engaging in real negotiations.
“They seem to be acting positively. I’d like to be optimistic,” Trump told reporters, hours after the envoys from South Korea said Kim told them he was ready to give up his nuclear weapons if the safety of his regime was guaranteed.
But a top administration official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said North Korea had earned skepticism in Washington through decades of failed peace deals and that Kim’s regime would need to do more than temporarily halt weapons tests before the US would agree to talks. Many analysts shared those doubts.
“The North Koreans are looking to buy time. They are looking for some relief just as the sanctions are beginning to bite and they are very worried about all the talk of a military strike,” said Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who’s a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“I’m highly skeptical that all of a sudden the North Koreans are ready to give up their nuclear weapons and missiles.”
The next step will be some tough questioning of the South Korean officials travelling to Washington on Thursday morning to brief the Trump administration on their talks with Kim in Pyongyang, the administration official said. North Korea’s state-run news agency said that the two sides had reached “a satisfactory agreement,” but the isolated nation hasn’t yet corroborated the account from Seoul.
Moon, who agreed to meet Kim for a summit late next month at the border village of Panmunjom, won office pledging to seek conciliation with Kim. He said that he has no plan to ease sanctions against North Korea, and will push for eventual denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, rather than a nuclear freeze or a nonproliferation commitment.
China, a traditional North Korean benefactor that has backed sanctions to force Kim back to the negotiating table, issued a Foreign Ministry statement welcoming “positive outcomes” from the inter-Korean talks.

Trump’s N Korea bluster scores a win, but at high risk
Bloomberg

North Korea’s offer to suspend nuclear and missile tests in exchange for talks with the US reflects an emerging truth about President Donald Trump’s unconventional foreign policy style: It may heighten the risk of conflict, but also the potential for breakthroughs.
As Trump said in a tweet: “the US is ready to go hard in either direction.” Few diplomats or analysts believe that Kim Jong Un’s offer, relayed by South Korea, will in fact deliver a denuclearized Korean peninsula in exchange for the US security guarantees suggested as a basis for talks.
The Kim dynasty has a history of dangling the prospect of a negotiated settlement on its nuclear arsenal, and then
walking away after getting concessions. It has also made enormous human and financial sacrifices to build its arsenal and accused the US of failing to uphold prior agreements.