By Troy Stangarone
With the conclusion of military exercises between the United States and South Korea there is an expectation that working level talks between the United States and North Korea may resume.
After Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held their brief summit in the DMZ at the end of June, the two leaders agreed to resume working-level negotiations. Those talks never got off the ground due to the recent U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises.
While it was never likely that North Korea would agree to negotiate while the exercises were ongoing, Kim did pledge to Trump in his recent letter that they would resume once the exercises were concluded.
The lack of working level talks has been one of the failings of the current iteration of disarmament talks with Pyongyang. While Trump's decision to meet with Kim helped to change the dynamics and ensure that the U.S. is talking with the ultimate decision-maker in North Korea, the process has also become too top heavy. That became evident after the failure to reach an agreement in Hanoi.
Neither Trump nor Kim have the necessary expertise to finalize a deal to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and very few leaders would.
Both need the advice and guidance of experts who can walk them through potential options for dismantlement and sanctions relief to ensure that each side is receiving the scope and benefits it is expecting in a deal. That can only happen if the two leaders allow working level staff to hash out options for them to consider.
Trump and Kim can make the final decisions among the options presented, but they need the working-level talks to get there.
However, North Korea has complicated the talks by suggesting that it has nothing to talk about with South Korea nor any intention to do so in the near-term.
North Korea may see this as a leverage move or a way to express its displeasure at the exercises, but the United States and South Korea should make clear that freezing South Korea out of the process isn't acceptable.
In the past, the United States has made clear to North Korea that it needs a good relationship with South Korea for talks with the U.S. to succeed. It should do so again; otherwise North Korea will be in a position to divide the alliance by excluding South Korea from the process.
Insisting on continued cooperation with South Korea also avoids the prospect of North Korea playing the United States and South Korea off each other by demonstrating to Kim that the alliance remains united, while showing North Korea that it can't exploit normal alliance activity for its own gain.
It's also impractical if North and South Korea are not talking. Any agreement is likely to include some form of sanctions relief for North Korea.
While raising the restrictions on the amount of petroleum that North Korea is allowed to import, even if only for a limited time, along with the easing restrictions on the import of other items such as solar panels would make sense as an initial stage of sanctions relief, at some point in the process exemptions for inter-Korean projects would likely be on the table.
For inter-Korean cooperation projects to move forward North and South Korea will need to have detailed discussions. Even inter-Korean projects such as restarting tourism at Mount Geumgang will require inter-Korean talks and cooperation from the United States for issues as simple as determining how North Korea would be paid, let alone basic communication on how the project would move forward.
If North Korea is serious about building a new relationship with the United States and South Korea, it's time for it to begin taking talks with both seriously.
Suggesting that it won't talk with one side because they are holding regularly scheduled exercises that have been scaled back to meet Pyongyang's concerns suggests that North Korea is more interested in playing games than in serious talks.
President Moon Jae-in is right to suggest that the U.S. and North Korea should take this opportunity to see if an agreement can be reached, but doing so also requires South Korea's continued involvement. It's incumbent on the United States to make that clear to North Korea.
Troy Stangarone (ts@keia.org) is the senior director of congressional affairs and trade at the Korea Economic Institute.
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After Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held their brief summit in the DMZ at the end of June, the two leaders agreed to resume working-level negotiations. Those talks never got off the ground due to the recent U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises.
While it was never likely that North Korea would agree to negotiate while the exercises were ongoing, Kim did pledge to Trump in his recent letter that they would resume once the exercises were concluded.
The lack of working level talks has been one of the failings of the current iteration of disarmament talks with Pyongyang. While Trump's decision to meet with Kim helped to change the dynamics and ensure that the U.S. is talking with the ultimate decision-maker in North Korea, the process has also become too top heavy. That became evident after the failure to reach an agreement in Hanoi.
Neither Trump nor Kim have the necessary expertise to finalize a deal to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and very few leaders would.
Both need the advice and guidance of experts who can walk them through potential options for dismantlement and sanctions relief to ensure that each side is receiving the scope and benefits it is expecting in a deal. That can only happen if the two leaders allow working level staff to hash out options for them to consider.
Trump and Kim can make the final decisions among the options presented, but they need the working-level talks to get there.
However, North Korea has complicated the talks by suggesting that it has nothing to talk about with South Korea nor any intention to do so in the near-term.
North Korea may see this as a leverage move or a way to express its displeasure at the exercises, but the United States and South Korea should make clear that freezing South Korea out of the process isn't acceptable.
In the past, the United States has made clear to North Korea that it needs a good relationship with South Korea for talks with the U.S. to succeed. It should do so again; otherwise North Korea will be in a position to divide the alliance by excluding South Korea from the process.
Insisting on continued cooperation with South Korea also avoids the prospect of North Korea playing the United States and South Korea off each other by demonstrating to Kim that the alliance remains united, while showing North Korea that it can't exploit normal alliance activity for its own gain.
It's also impractical if North and South Korea are not talking. Any agreement is likely to include some form of sanctions relief for North Korea.
While raising the restrictions on the amount of petroleum that North Korea is allowed to import, even if only for a limited time, along with the easing restrictions on the import of other items such as solar panels would make sense as an initial stage of sanctions relief, at some point in the process exemptions for inter-Korean projects would likely be on the table.
For inter-Korean cooperation projects to move forward North and South Korea will need to have detailed discussions. Even inter-Korean projects such as restarting tourism at Mount Geumgang will require inter-Korean talks and cooperation from the United States for issues as simple as determining how North Korea would be paid, let alone basic communication on how the project would move forward.
If North Korea is serious about building a new relationship with the United States and South Korea, it's time for it to begin taking talks with both seriously.
Suggesting that it won't talk with one side because they are holding regularly scheduled exercises that have been scaled back to meet Pyongyang's concerns suggests that North Korea is more interested in playing games than in serious talks.
President Moon Jae-in is right to suggest that the U.S. and North Korea should take this opportunity to see if an agreement can be reached, but doing so also requires South Korea's continued involvement. It's incumbent on the United States to make that clear to North Korea.
Troy Stangarone (ts@keia.org) is the senior director of congressional affairs and trade at the Korea Economic Institute.
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