U.S. puts off escalating sanctions on Pyongyang as talks to meet in Singapore in June continue
The U.S. decided to defer launching a major new sanctions push against North Korea, part of a flurry of weekend moves by both sides aimed at reviving a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The White House was prepared to announce the ramped-up sanctions regime Tuesday but decided Monday to indefinitely delay the measures while talks with North Korea about the summit proceed, a U.S. official said, citing progress in efforts to repair diplomatic relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
The Treasury Department had prepared a sanctions package aimed at nearly three dozen targets, including Russian and Chinese entities, according to two administration officials.
Talks between the U.S. and North Korean delegations were set to take place through Tuesday and could continue beyond that.
The U.S. signaled last week it would turn its attention to strengthening the sanctions regime should summit talks fail, but momentum toward a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim grew over the weekend, as time ran short for preparation for a meeting, originally scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
Separate teams from the U.S. and North Korea also arrived in Singapore Monday ahead of preparatory meetings there this week. The delegations are respectively led by Joe Hagin, a White House deputy chief of staff, and Kim Chang Son, a close aide to the North Korean dictator, a person familiar with the matter said.
Also Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke to Mr. Trump by phone for about half an hour and agreed to meet before any U.S.-North Korea summit.
“We agreed to cooperate on the basis of a common policy so that the U.S.-North Korea summit is meaningful,” Mr. Abe said.
Just a few days ago the chances of a summit seemed to have collapsed.
Mr. Trump said Thursday that he would withdraw from the summit with Mr. Kim, citing “open hostility” from North Korea.
Then a hastily arranged meeting of the North and South Korean leaders over the weekend, and a conciliatory statement from Mr. Trump, appeared to put the meeting back on course.
Although details of this week’s talks remain unclear, South Korean officials, who have been mediating between Washington and Pyongyang, suggested that the U.S. and North Korea were trying to address a fundamental disagreement over denuclearization.
“At the end, there are two things that will become the agenda of the summit,” said a senior Seoul official. The U.S. is seeking assurances that North Korea will dismantle its nuclear arms in a verifiable manner, while Pyongyang is seeking U.S. promises to keep the Kim regime intact, post-denuclearization, he said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said talks with North Korea are proceeding but declined to comment further.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who met Mr. Kim over the weekend, said Sunday that the North Korean leader remained devoted to “complete denuclearization” but noted that Pyongyang needed U.S. guarantees of regime survival as part of any deal.
In a commentary in state media Monday, North Korea expressed a “steadfast will” to help build a “nuclear-free, peaceful world” and hailed its dismantling last week of its nuclear test site.
Still, long-held concerns about Mr. Kim’s willingness to denuclearize persist.
One sticking point is the meaning of denuclearization. The U.S. has been pushing for “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization”—something Mr. Kim won’t accept, according to the North’s highest-level defector in two decades. Instead, he said, Pyongyang would push for a watered-down denuclearization.
The North reacted angrily in recent weeks to a suggestion from U.S. national security adviser John Bolton that the “Libya model,” under which dictator Moammar Gadhafi gave up his nuclear program in the early 2000s in exchange for sanctions relief, might serve as a blueprint for North Korea. The Libyan leader was overthrown and killed several years later.
Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong Un and myself. I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial Nation one day. Kim Jong Un agrees with me on this. It will happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2018
There is a good chance that North Korea and the U.S. won’t be able to agree on what denuclearization means, said Cho Young-key, a senior researcher at the Hansun Foundation, a think tank in Seoul. North Korea believes in “sufficient” denuclearization, while the U.S. wants “complete,” noted Mr. Cho, who is conservative. Still, he thought the Singapore summit between Messrs. Trump and Kim would go ahead.
North Korea is also seeking relief from economic sanctions that have crippled its economy.
The U.S. and the United Nations have made considerable strides in cutting off North Korea’s foreign revenues over the last couple of years, including getting the country’s biggest benefactor, China, to dramatically reduce trade and finance flows.
Mr. Kim indicated this year that he wants to focus on economic development, and Mr. Trump has held out promises of prosperity.
In a tweet Sunday, Mr. Trump said, “I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial Nation one day. Kim Jong Un agrees with me on this. It will happen!”
Separately, the two Koreas agreed to proceed with their own high-level talks Friday. The North had abruptly pulled out of the discussions this month, citing anger at the South’s participation in military exercises with the U.S.
The high-level talks are expected to focus on ways to de-escalate inter-Korean military tensions and set up a reunion for some of the families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War.
But in a sign of divisions in South Korea over the rapprochement with the North, Seoul’s legislature failed Monday to ratify the agreement the two Koreas’ leaders reached on April 27.
Conservative opposition lawmakers blocked the Panmunjom Declaration, in which the two Koreas pledged to cease hostilities and work toward a peace treaty, blaming the absence of phrases urging North Korea to pursue “complete, verifiable, and irreversible” denuclearization.
By Vivian Salama in Washington, Andrew Jeong in Seoul and Chun Han Wong in Beijing
