Experienced North Korea watchers scoffed at U.S. President Donald Trump's assertion after his Singapore summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un that he had ended the North Korean threat. Their skepticism was born out last weekend after talks between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, ended with widely divergent assessments of their progress. While some ask if the two governments are even talking about the same thing, seasoned observers see time-tested North Korean tactics. The reality check is valuable. It is a reminder that this will be a long and difficult process.
Pompeo was in Pyongyang for talks to put meat on the bones of the summit agreement reached by Trump and Kim in their June 12 summit in Singapore. The summit declaration was vague, noting only the two governments would establish "new U.S.-DPRK relations," build "a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula," denuclearize the peninsula and return the remains of U.S. soldiers who died during the Korean War. Pompeo had hoped to get agreement on the meaning of "denuclearization" and set a timetable for progress.
Pompeo called the two days of meetings "productive"; he thought the two sides had made progress. Reportedly, the two sides set up working groups to address various issues, including the destruction of Pyongyang's missile engine-testing facility. He added that the two sides would meet on or near July 12 to discuss return of the remains of U.S. soldiers from the Korean War. North Korea responded with a broadside, calling the U.S. focus on denuclearization "unilateral and gangster-like" and said the U.S. attitude toward the talks was "regrettable." Pompeo dismissed the complaints, noting that "if those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster."