Posted on : Mar.25,2019 17:49 KST
Modified on : Mar.25,2019 18:04 KST
 |
|
US President Donald Trump answers questions regarding North Korea at the White House on Mar. 13. (AP/Yonhap News)
|
On Mar. 22, US President Donald Trump tweeted a message reading, “It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”
The remarks, which signaled a halt to a push for additional economic pressure against the North in the wake of the second North Korea-US summit’s collapse, came across as an attempt to draw Pyongyang back into dialogue. They also read as indicating Trump’s commitment not to neglect the issue of North Korea-US relations, which have recently appeared to be losing momentum. Also of considerable significance for North Korea was the message from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who said that Trump “likes Chairman Kim [Jong-un]” and “doesn't think these sanctions will be necessary.”
The orders are particularly timely at a moment when North Korea-US and inter-Korean tensions have been growing in the wake of the Hanoi summit. In Washington, officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House National Security Advisor John Bolton have been unanimously pushing for a “big deal” involving relief from economic sanctions in exchange for North Korea abandoning all of its weapons of mass destruction, including its nuclear and missile programs. On Mar. 21, the Treasury Department announced its first new North Korea sanctions since December.
In response to this, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui delivered a Mar. 15 press conference denouncing the “gangster-like” US demands and raising the possibility of a suspension of bilateral negotiations; on Mar. 22, the North abruptly withdrew all its personnel from the joint inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong. Given the complexity of the situation, the best thing now that Trump has sent his own conciliatory message promising no additional pressure on the North would be for Pyongyang to respond in kind and unravel the current knot. North Korea, for its part, does not appear to have an immediate intention of abandoning dialogue; instead, it looks to be weighing things as it observes the situation.
An indication of this is its tacit agreement to allow South Korean staffers to stay behind at the Kaesong liaison office even after its withdrawal. State Affairs Commission chief secretary Kim Chang-son, a close associate of Kim Jong-un, has also been observed preparing for a North Korea-Russia summit during a recent visit to Russia. At the same time, the momentum for resuming dialogue is likely to peter out the longer this standoff persists, and even a minor factor coming at a sensitive moment could throw a wrench in the whole situation.
In her press conference, Choe Son-hui said that North Korea would “soon announce a decision on whether to continue denuclearization negotiations with the US and whether to maintain the suspension of missile launches and nuclear testing.” Now that Trump’s commitment to negotiations is clear, we hope North Korea will move before it’s too late, using his message as an excuse to declare its willingness to resume dialogue and maintain the moratorium on nuclear and missile testing.
Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
