Amid reports from South Korea that President Trump has said he was open to talks with North Korea “under certain circumstances,” without ever making clear what those circumstances would be, North Korea has also put its own preconditions on the talks.
Deputy North Korean Ambassador to the UN Kim In Ryong said that North Korea welcomes the idea of US talks, but “what is important is not words, but actions,” and that the US needs to back off its hostile policy toward North Korea for the talks to have any value.
This appeared a bit short of an outright precondition, though Kim insisted that North Korea views US hostility as “the root cause of all problems” in the region. The US State Department insisted that the US wanted North Korea to abandon all of its misdeeds before any talks took place, including scrapping its missile and nuclear programs.
South Korea’s new president Moon Jae-in campaigned on the idea of resuming diplomacy with the North, citing the “Sunshine Policy” as a model that he’d like to bring back. Getting diplomacy going is likely to depend heavily on US acquiescence, with the Trump Administration insisting diplomacy is a “failure.”
Moon may have more power than he even thinks he has with his Sunshine idea . The vast majority of the American people are very much for peace in both North and South Korea If North and South Korea can agree on somethings ? It will be extremely difficult for the U.S. government to deny them that right . If the media will report these agreements . Now days the facts will be brought out even if only by Russia , China and the alternative media .
Moon may have more power than he even thinks he has with his Sunshine idea . The vast majority of the American people are very much for peace in both North and South Korea If North and South Korea can agree on somethings ? It will be extremely difficult for the U.S. government to deny them that right . If the media will report these agreements . Now days the facts will be brought out even if only by Russia , China and the alternative media .
The North has not been at all receptive at anytime. What they want is to own the entire peninsula, and anything that keeps them from that is not acceptable. All the Kims have been insane when it comes to that.
It shouldn’t depend one bit on “US acquiescence.” What’s Trump going to do about it other than run off his mouth?
… There’s been enough direct diplomacy to judge it a failure?
Over the years, yes. The NORKs have been nothing short of loony and have made repeated attempts to kill members of the SK government. They have repeatedly made provocative attacks on the south, killing many people. The NORKs, if they really want peace, have the burden of proof on the matter. So far, all they’ve shown themselves to be is desirous to conquer the south, as they have since 1950.
As in, when was the last time the U.S. deigned to sit down and negotiate directly with the North Koreans face to face as peer nations with a serious dispute?
North Korea is own country; the U.S. treats it like an illegitimate rebel enclave with no international standing, approached only through intermediaries. Not even Trump dares to cross that MIC line, although he’s talked about doing so. That trial balloon surely transmuted to stone rather quickly behind closed doors.
Recent American moves seem directed at stabilizing and expanding a NK-China/Russia split based on neither China nor Russia being happy with a nuclear-armed North Korea also able to strike at them with nukes, should the need somehow arise.
Up to a point that makes sense; ideally the U.S. would like to be the one controlling NK and have missile bases there containing China and Russia in the North Pacific. However, if the NKs will do it for them indirectly, a loose cannon on strategically sensitive real estate that can be triggered with little effort or direct liability, apparently its good enough for now, for the geostrategists of the Deep State.
Which it is not, since the North Korean first target of choice is the United States in Japan and in North America. Yet another country with nukes aimed at the U.S. is not really a wise strategic gamble just to destabilize Northeast Asia. Also, presently, neither China or Russia are much into U.S.-style regime change games; tempting them to go after North Korea in such a manner is letting the wrong genies out of properly sealed and bolted down bottles.
You need to do some research on diplomacy with the NORKs. The reason we have never recognized Kim’s regime is in there, along with the fact that it was set up as a Stalinist puppet in the first place. Kim has never engaged in diplomacy as a reasonable partner because the regimes only desire is to control the entire peninsula and their “diplomacy” has never seen anything else. Both China and Russia have served their own strategic interests poorly in allowing Kim;s insanity to run,loose for so many years. Allowing him nukes can only be regarded as utter idiocy on their part.
We have no desire or strategic interest in controlling NORK.
… Well, the reality is Stalin and Stalinism are long dead and North Korea is a nation state and no-one’s puppet however it may have been set up. Given North Korea’s purges of pro-Chinese and even pro-Russian factions early in its history, its unlikely that China or Russia were under any illusions about the degree of independence North Korea expected.
Geographical strategic reality is, that North Korea is vital geopolitical territory and any geopolitical power with a brain would consider controlling it. Kim Jong Un is saying a pox, or rather, a nuke, on any house forgetting North Korea is independent and a global chesspiece preferably never; China, Russia or the U.S..
Both Korean ruling elites desire unity under their exclusive banner. The North Koreans don’t have a lock on territorial ambition. Western reconciliation scenarios had North Korean rulers being essentially absorbed into the South, the North envisioned a federal arrangement. One was tacit call to surrender, the other a transparent setup for invasion.
The U.S. under the Clintons and Bush administrations enabled the North Koreans to develop nuclear weapons, giving them light water reactors on the false premise LWRs can’t produce fissionable material. They can. Most nuke experts concur on this.
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan is the father of the Pakistani bomb, and he has admitted that the CIA enabled him to share bomb secrets with North Korea.
China and Russia both recognize North Korean sovereignty. That means they have to let its leadership govern without interference that violates the principle of nation state sovereignty.
For the Eurasians, this is the normal way things are supposed to work in international affairs. North Korean rejection of soft power plays are not an invitation to go hard power. Perhaps there’s been some miscommunication in anticipated action-reaction.
Either of China or Russia could have given North Korea nukes anytime, but they never did. It wasn’t until the Americans stepped in that North Korea finally realized its nuclear ambitions.
Now the Eurasians are nervously sitting back and allowing the U.S. to rest under the sword it tied over its head, and by extension, theirs as well.
You are remarkably naive. NORK is no more a nation state than my dog is a goldfish. Kim owns the place and is willing to do what is required to keep it that way. You can carry on like we want war with Kim, but the US knows what war can do to everyone involved. Kim knows what he wants and is trying to provoke a war thinking his regime will survive it. He is as remarkably naive as you.
South Sudan is hardly a nation state at all and the artifice of intervention is fast becoming two nations viciously along tribal lines irregardless of internationally recognized boundaries.
However, there are minimum requirements under international law for dealing with South Sudan effectively, the minimum being diplomatic recognition and peer respect as a sovereign nation state. The North Koreans should be simpler to deal with as all competing factions have already been killed off.
Perhaps someone freshly thawed from a time suspension capsule from USA circa 1953 might have a problem with North Korea being a nation state. Its 2017 and the ultra extremist isolationist nationalist leadership of North Korea does indeed preside over a bona fide nation state under international law and custom.
Feel free to define North Korea as something else, but the reality is darker than your ray-bans. Wearing sunglasses at night is going to be awkward as little Kim’s got a little something painful for your – indeed our, collective shins if you stumble the wrong way.
You’re welcome to define NORK as something it isn’t. If it’s a bona fide nation state, then my dog is the King of England. If Kim uses a nuke on anyone, the little grifter can say good by to this world and join his father and grandfather in hell.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 702 (8 August 1991), advocated formally admitting both North and South Korea simultaneously into the United Nations.
The subsequent Resolution 46/1 was passed by the U.N. General Assembly on 17 September, 1991. The DPRK is as much a nation state as any other, with full membership and representation.
The United States could have prevented this easily with its veto power at any time, but did not. So North Korea has its legal bona fides, just like your dog could be make king of England if legal arrangements could be so made.
People are becoming more and more selfish and the impact of our wars of aggression seem to make our Empire loving society all the more self-absorbed. It’s as if planet earth was created for but one purpose, to reach the ultimate conclusion of the glory and power of wealth?
For in a world without wealth, how could there ever be a war?