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US President Donald Trump (right) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (left) pose for a commemorative photograph before the historic North Korea-US summit at the Capella Hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa island on June 12. This the first ever summit between the leaders of North Korea and the US. (provided by Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information/Yonhap News)
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Trump’s abandonment of G7 agreements adds pressure to make Singapore summit successful
Leaving behind 70 years of hatred and mistrust, the leaders of North Korea and the US will be holding the “meeting of the century” at Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island in Singapore at 9 am (local time) on June 12. This is a unique and indeed an unprecedented meeting. US President Donald Trump described this as “unknown territory,” and North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the summit “is taking place for the first time in history amid the interest and expectations of the entire world.”
Another major characteristic of the summit is that it is taking place “inside the fog,” with no telling what the results will be. This sets it apart from typical summits, which are “diplomatic ceremonies” that merely confirm agreements already worked out by lower-level officials. Given these characteristics, there are quite a few things to watch for in the summit.
The first big question is whether a joint statement will be released detailing the results of the summit. For now, the news coming out of Singapore is positive. At 8 pm on June 11, the White House stated that after Trump completes the summit, he will attend a press conference before leaving Singapore. The implication is that the two sides reconciled their viewpoints to a considerable degree during the final two rounds of working-level talks held on June 11 and reached an agreement worth being announced to the press.
While there were numerous twists and turns before the summit became a reality, the prevailing view is that the summit will not be a failure. A complete collapse of the summit would have serious political repercussions for both sides, and it would not be easy to regain momentum for future negotiations.
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North Korea‘‘s leader Kim Jong Un (L) shakes hands with US President Donald Trump (R) at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have become on June 12 the first sitting US and North Korean leaders to meet, shake hands and negotiate to end a decades-old nuclear stand-off. / AFP
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On top of that, Trump picked a fight with the US’s traditional allies – including Canada and countries in Europe – over trade issues during the G7 summit on June 8 and 9. Under such circumstances, concluding the summit without accomplishing anything would likely place Trump in a major political crisis before the midterm elections in November. While Trump said that this summit represented a “one-time shot” for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the same is true for him.
“The goal of the American negotiators has been getting North Korea to agree to the Sept. 19 Joint Statement,” a source who is familiar with the preparation for the North Korea-US summit told The Hankyoreh on June 11. In the statement, which was produced by the Six-Party Talks in Sept. 2005, the US promised to take steps to normalize relations with North Korea on the condition that the North abandons all its extant nuclear weapons and nuclear plans.
This document can be seen as a more concrete elaboration of the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” that was mentioned in the Apr. 27 Panmunjeom Declaration. Therefore, if the North Korea-US summit is successful and results in a joint statement, that statement is expected to reaffirm the terms of the Sept. 19 Joint Statement and add the initial short-term steps toward North Korea’s denuclearization and the US’s corresponding measures. The US press has also cited US government officials as predicting that a joint statement could be made if the summit goes well.
If the summit does result in a joint statement, the key question is likely to be how this statement incorporates the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) that the US has reportedly emphasized is the goal of the summit. Another important thing to watch for is the date and location of subsequent meetings that Trump has said several times might be held.
Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, emphasized the importance of this summit. “The important thing is confidence-building. It’s hard to build confidence on the working level. It would be enough just to set the date and location of the next summit,” Carlin told The Hankyoreh on June 11.
The second big question is the format of the summit. The White House said in its statement that Trump and Kim would be meeting one-on-one, only accompanied by their interpreters. The one-on-one meeting best symbolizes the fact that this summit was engineered by these two strong-willed leaders. During a press conference on June 9, Trump said he would be able to figure out whether Kim is serious about denuclearization “within the first minute.” Trump said this is “just my touch, my feel. That’s what I do.”
The American officials who will attend the expanded summit that will take place after the one-on-one summit are US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has played the biggest role in arranging the summit, along with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim and White House National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Matthew Pottinger. White House National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has been a major obstacle to the talks, also appears on the list of participants.
While the North Korean participants in the expanded summit have not been announced, it is certain that Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and director of the WPK United Front Department, will be present, given his key role in bringing about the summit through deliberations with Pompeo. Other officials who are likely to attend are veteran diplomats with extensive experience negotiating with the US, including WPK Vice Chairman Ri Su-yong, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho and Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, who was Sung Kim’s counterpart in the working-level negotiations. It will also be interesting to see whether Kim Yo-jong, first vice director of the WPK Central Committee, will also be present. Kim Yo-jong stuck close by Kim Jong-un, her older brother, during the inter-Korean summit.
The third big question is what will be on the menu of the “working lunch” that will follow the expanded summit. While Trump said he would “walk out” of the meeting if it does not go well, that is no longer a possibility since the White House stated that a working lunch would be held after the expanded summit. While he was running for president in June 2016, Trump said he was prepared to talk with anyone and that he would rather sit down with Kim Jong-un to chat over a burger than have an official dinner. It will also be interesting to see whether the two leaders actually have a burger together.
Finally, there are several questions of protocol that are more significant than they might appear. These questions include which of the two leaders will arrive at the meeting first and wait for the other, how they will greet each other, what gifts they will exchange, what title they will address each other with and whether their national flags will hang in the meeting room, all of which will be history making.
Attention is also focusing on what kind of physical contact – a handshake or a hug – there may be between Kim and Trump. While Kim was shown hugging South Korean President Moon Jae-in during their two summits on Apr. 27 and May 26, no photo of an embrace was released after Kim’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun predicted that Kim and Trump will not hug each other: “Because there is a 20cm height difference between Trump and Kim, if they hugged each other it would look as if Trump is looking down at Kim.”
If the two leaders shake hands, it will be worth seeing whether Trump shows off his vice grip by yanking on Kim’s hand as he has done with other world leaders.
By Yi Yong-in, reporting from Singapore, and Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter
Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
