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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announces that the US government is prepared to speak to North Korea without preconditions during a conference sponsored by the Korea Foundation and the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 13. (Yonhap News)
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Disagreement exemplifies the amateurish coordination of policy inside the Trump administration
On Dec. 13, the White House officially adopted a critical position toward the proposal for meeting North Korea “without precondition” made the previous day by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In the space of a day, Tillerson’s remarks have been effectively erased. This is thought to illustrate the amateurish coordination of policy inside the Trump administration. When asked by the Hankyoreh for the White House’s position on Tillerson’s proposal, an official from the National Security Council said that the US’s North Korean policy has not changed and that now is definitely not the time for dialogue. North Korea must refrain from additional provocations and take serious and meaningful steps toward denuclearization, the official said, adding that the preconditions for dialogue were not limited to refraining from additional tests of nuclear weapons or missiles. The official explained that the Trump administration has consistently held that all talks with North Korea must wait until Pyongyang has fundamentally improved its attitude and that it will not repeat bad policies from the past. The official noted that the dialogue with North Korea remains a possibility, as the administration has repeatedly said, but remained ambiguous about the exact timing of dialogue, explaining that this would become clear later. “We’re ready to have the first meeting without precondition… It’s not realistic to say we’re only going to talk if you [North Korea] come to the table ready to give up your [nuclear] program,” Tillerson said during a forum held in Washington on Dec. 12, expressing an eagerness to engage in dialogue. Tillerson’s remarks were seized upon because they suggested that the US might stop insisting that North Korea take sincere action toward denuclearization, which it has long treated as a precondition for resuming dialogue with the North. The White House’s official position completely contradicts Tillerson’s remarks. “We remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a credible dialogue on the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” said US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert during the department’s daily press briefing on Dec. 13, aligning its position with the White House. “It’s widely assumed in the US that Tillerson will be replaced next February, one year after he was appointed. This appears to have been an effort by Tillerson to act according to his convictions by promoting dialogue in the time he has left. Various reactions show that his proposal was ultimately not approved,” said Kim Hyeon-uk, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. Another diplomatic source in Washington, D.C. stressed the interpretation that Tillerson’s remarks reflected his personal views, since they were made “during the Q&A session, and not during the first part of the forum, when Tillerson read a prepared document.” When asked about the conflicting positions adopted by Tillerson and the White House during the regular press briefing on Dec. 14, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Roh Kyu-deok said, “South Korea and the US have been consistently calling on North Korea to halt its provocations and threats and to quickly return to dialogue. My understanding is that the White House’s reaction serves to reiterate this position.” This is not the first time that the White House and Tillerson have been at odds. After Tillerson said in September that the US held open two or three channels for dialogue with North Korea, Trump shot back the next day that dialogue was a “waste of time.” The Trump administration’s lack of a consistent message toward North Korea has been criticized for plunging its allies into confusion as well as making North Korea doubt the US’s willingness to negotiate. It also embarrasses China and Russia, which had eagerly welcomed Tillerson’s remarks. By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent, Kim Ji-eun and Seong Yeon-cheol, staff reporters Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
