A delegation from North Korea, led by DPRK chief negotiator on denuclearization, Kim Myung-Gil, arrived in Sweden to hold new talks with the United States, Ronhap, a South Korean news agency, said. DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Myung-Gil himself, while talking to reporters at the Beijing airport, from where he then flew to Stockholm, confirmed that he was "going to negotiations at the working level with the United States."
“Since the American side received a new signal, I have high expectations and are optimistic about the results,” Ronhap quoted the head of the North Korean delegation as saying.
Negotiations between the United States and North Korea are scheduled for the end of the week, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Song-hee said on October 1.
“Preliminary contact” will take place on Friday, and the meeting at the working level will be held the very next day, October 5, ”said Choi Song-hee.
The intention to meet with the DPRK delegation at the end of this week was also confirmed in the US State Department. They noted that the American delegation will be led by State Department Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Bigan.
Three meetings of Trump and Kim
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have met three times since 2018, when the first DPRK and US summit took place in Singapore. Then, following the results of the negotiations, a joint document was signed, according to which Pyongyang committed itself to denuclearization in exchange for security guarantees from Washington.
- US President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019.
- © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Fulfilling its obligations, the Korean side then suspended nuclear missile tests and closed the test site in the north of the republic.
However, it was not possible to seriously advance in the process of denuclearization, since the White House was not ready for progressive steps, requiring the simultaneous disarmament of the DPRK. However, Pyongyang does not agree to this - he expects to first receive guarantees from the American side.
The second round of negotiations took place in February 2019 in Hanoi. After several meetings with Kim Jong Un, Donald Trump unexpectedly interrupted the summit, and left Vietnam. No documents were signed during these meetings.
The last time the U.S. and DPRK leaders met on June 30, 2019, when Donald Trump arrived at the Panmunjom border checkpoint in the demilitarized zone. There, he spoke with Kim Jong-un and symbolically crossed the demarcation line between North and South Korea, becoming the first US president to visit the DPRK. Then the leaders agreed to resume negotiations on denuclearization at the working level. Moreover, the meeting was not planned in advance - the proposal about it, Trump made Kim on Twitter just a day before the event took place.
According to the head of the Department of Korea and Mongolia of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Vorontsov, after an unsuccessful summit in Hanoi, both sides of the process developed new tactics and approaches.
“North Korea has put forward a new system of counting mutual actions as a requirement on the US side, which includes rejecting hostile policies from the United States, building trust-based relations and providing comprehensive security guarantees to their country. Pyongyang has taken practical steps and, accordingly, is waiting for a response from Washington, ”the expert said.
New challenges
Despite the historic meeting between Kim and Trump on the border in the summer of 2019, it has not been possible to resume the negotiation process until now. In early August, the DPRK announced new successful missile tests, which were held under the personal supervision of Kim Jong-un.
This was a kind of response to Washington to the joint military exercises of South Korea and the United States, which took place from August 5 to 20, 2019. Despite the fact that they were exclusively staff training exercises using computer simulation, the DPRK regarded the maneuvers as a challenge from the United States and its southern neighbor.
Soon after another test, Pyongyang refused to continue negotiations with South Korea, criticizing South Korean leader Moon Jae In. A North Korean Central Telegraph Agency (CTAC) report said the South Korean leader should be “ashamed to talk about the atmosphere of dialogue” during a joint military exercise with the United States.
North Korea continued to launch missiles - the latter took place on October 2, just a day before it became known that the North Korean delegation had left for the next round of negotiations. CTAC reported that a new type of Pukguksong-3 ballistic missile was being tested, and launches were made from submarines.
New trials will not harm the negotiation process, since they formally correspond to the agreements of Kim and Trump reached earlier, said Yevgeny Kim, a leading researcher at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“Last year in Singapore, Kim Jong-un made a promise to Trump that he would not test heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles, and he fulfills it because he is testing medium-range missiles that cannot reach America,” the expert noted.
Alexander Vorontsov also recalled that these launches have been ongoing continuously over the past five months and have not had a negative impact on the organization of a new round of negotiations.
“So far, Trump personally reacts to them very restrained, since Kim Jong-un does not violate the agreements that were reached between them,” Vorontsov added.
Negotiations without Bolton
Despite new launches of DPRK missiles, US President Donald Trump said that Washington still intends to negotiate with Pyongyang. This policy of trump has repeatedly criticized the dismissed from his post as adviser to the US president for national security, John Bolton. So, in one of his last comments on September 30, he expressed confidence that Kim Jong-un could “make some concessions,” but he would not give up nuclear weapons.
- © Peter Nicholls / Reuters
Experts in a conversation with RT emphasized that it was the resignation of Bolton, who took a tough stance towards Pyongyang, that facilitated the organization of a new round of negotiations.
“After Trump dismissed Bolton, a supporter of severe pressure on the DPRK, the conversation about determining the new stages of denuclearization that North Korea and the United States will carry out becomes more real,” said Eugene Kim.
According to the expert, the United States may come forward with a proposal to ease some sanctions, and the DPRK may invite foreign experts to the nuclear research center in Yongbyon as a response, then liquidate it to show its openness and commitment to the process.
“This is a complex process, and the parties will have to seek a compromise. Naturally, the main decisions will be made by the leaders and, as it seems to me, this will happen next year, when Trump’s election campaign moves into the active phase, ”says Eugene Kim.
This position is shared by Alexander Vorontsov, who noted that after rearrangements in the US administration, Pyongyang will expect a new approach to the negotiation process.
“North Koreans hope that Trump, who fired Bolton, is ready for some kind of innovation. The DPRK understands that the negotiations will be difficult, and it may not be possible to agree on many things, but there is hope that the Americans will work on other conditions. In any case, the main thing is that the negotiation process begins, and most likely it will develop in stages. Therefore, now it is hardly worth expecting cardinal breakthroughs, ”the expert concluded.