Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to North Korea this week came with high hopes. The previous two Pompeo visits, and other high profile meetings were all runaway successes, and the expectation was this would just further cement agreements already made.
Instead, North Korea came out of the talks saying the whole two-day visit was “regrettable,” and that they find America’s attitude toward the diplomatic process “extremely troubling.” They said the US was not following the spirit of the Kim-Trump summit, and was just making demands throughout Pompeo’s visit.
Interestingly, Pompeo’s own statement appeared to try to spin the two-day visit as a success, saying a “great deal of progress” was made, and that more needs to be done, but not offering anything to suggest the talks ended badly.
The real evidence of how badly the visit went is that unlike his two previous visits, Pompeo didn’t even get to meet Kim Jong-un this time, instead only having talks with aide Kim Yong-chol. There were suggestions Friday night that the Kim visit was pushed to Saturday, but ultimately it never happened.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry statement called on both sides to take simultaneous actions to improve the environment surrounding the talks. How the US will respond publicly remains to be seen, as so far the administration doesn’t appear willing to even acknowledge that the talks went badly this time around.
Deliberate sabotage?…
Don’t trust Americans.
These sort of meetings are usually photo ops affirming what goes on prior behind closed doors.
There’s little room for real sabotage.
Hehe.. some hope North Korea is only gaming for more American concessions.. but is there more to it ? Trump is backed into a corner. He needs this political ace up his sleeve, that is obvious. Pompeo’s language reveals the Trump Administration’s m.o. – just make it look good !
Concessions it shall be; Krispy Creme in Pyongyang!
Shocking. Just shocking. That it only took three visits.
The glee from the posts below,
make one wonder how many of them are really—“Antiwar”.
Nobody, with a mind, thought this would be easy.
But at least we are beginning to— talk.
NK’s are master negotiators
(witness the fleecing of the previous 3 presidents)
boom down warmongers,
give it a chance.
Or be outted as the hypocrites you sound like.
Actually, it is easy,offer concessions to get concessions. Problem is, trump doesn’t have bankruptcy to fall back on to cover his failures anymore.
If it were “easy”,
anyone of the 3 previous presidents would have done it.
You are not Antiwar,
you are anti-Trump,
thanks for illustrating my point.
Because when one of them offered concessions it was called appeasement.
They all gave “concessions” and got smoked by the Norks.
So I guess it was easy.
Yes, getting smoked is.
That really depends on how you interpret U.S. government debt.
How exactly were you able to determine the posters you talk about were showing “glee” with their comments? Being skeptical because we sent a hardcore neocon as our lead negotiator sounds rational to me.
Because sending softcore losers from the 3 previous admins got us to the point where Kim has nukes and the means to deliver them.
Negotiating with dictators requires HARDCORE, serious people,
not ivy league idiots.
Again, how did you determine people were showing Glee?
Pompeo is an ivy league idiot, idiot.
Pompeo is a West Pointer.
Why won’t you answer my question? How did you determine people were gleeful? This article is about North Korea’s take on Pompeo’s negotiating style and people commented knowingly since they knew Pompeo was a neocon going in. So, how is that showing glee?
He didn’t graduate from law school at West Point.
Sanctimonious, assumptions that a hardliner could never possibly accomplish a peace deal.
Always assuming the best about the most thoroughly disgusting, brutal and inhumane regime on the planet,
while assigning constant criticism toward the US and this admin,
in spite of the fact they were the only ones to produce talks that demand real change from the Norks.
Hardly. More like observations on what happens when you send a hardliner to negotiate, which what this article is about. The only assuming be done is by you. And saying hardline negotiations don’t work is not condoning anything North Korea does. So, no glee.
The proof will be in the pudding.
Albright (what a name), Rice, Kerry and Hill-bags were patsies to the Norks.
While I wish anyone of them had been successful,
they all failed.
So, likewise, I wish Pompeo success, but we will have to wait and see.
The hardline is the only way in my view that you are ever going to impact a malignant monster like Kim.
Jeez, what a surprise! Does anyone realistically believe that the NK’s will agree to complete denuclearization? Particularly after all of the macho talk from pompeo and bolton, it is absolute bull ___.
If and when trump sees the nobel go flying out the window, he may decide that this gamesmanship is not working. Moreover, how and why can the NK’s trust anything the Americans agree to.
I guess the real question is who is gaming whom?
Answers for you:
1) there are exactly two people in the world who believe NK will commit to de-nuke: tRump and Pompeo.
2) there is no question who is gaming whom.
The North Korean statement uses the key word:
The US is demanding UNILATERAL denuclearization.
There are two possible interpretations of that word.
One is particular to nuclear weapons. Being “unilateral” might mean either that the US is not offering to get rid of its own nukes, or that it is not offering some kind of way to guarantee that it won’t station nukes specifically in, or off the shores of, the Korean peninsula.
The other is more general, i.e. “the US wants us to denuclearize but isn’t really offering us anything in return.”
If the latter, the way to keep negotiations going is to offer the North something big, e.g. “as you verifiably denuclearize, we will verifiably reduce the number of US troops on the DMZ until both numbers are at zero.”
If the former, the way forward is for the US to announce a summit of nuclear powers with an eye toward denuclearizing the world, not just North Korea.
True; U.S. nukes at sea make denuclearization of the peninsula almost academic.
Seems to me that there is only one nation on the face of the earth that can never be trusted to not use Nuclear weapons of mass destruction so it makes a lot of sense to have that nation set the standards and rule the world, not.
Who dares, wins.
I know liberals are rooting for war with N. Korea — but I hope antiwar.com isn’t.
“Democrats are so obviously rooting against us in our negotiations with North Korea.”
– President Donald J. Trump
Pompeo is and always will be, a neocon thug. You can dress him up like a diplomat and call him the Secretary of State, but he will still be CIA/Mossad at heart, cunning, deceitful, and arrogant.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-08/one-night-in-pyongyang-inside-pompeo-s-fraught-north-korea-trip
It was the start of a confused visit of less than 30 hours, marked by a pair of lavish banquets that the secretary and his staff appeared to dread for their length and the daunting number of courses presented by unfailingly polite waiters. He only learned of his own schedule hours ahead of time, and the meeting with Kim Jong Un never happened — despite strenuous efforts from his staff.
Still, the reminders were there. Guests could roam the grounds and walk a path that surrounded a lake, but were blocked from approaching workers erecting a building nearby. Guards watched surreptitiously from behind a stand of trees.
The lack of U.S. control clearly rankled Pompeo. A former military officer accustomed to short, focused meetings, he was made to sit through multi-course meals with Kim and his staff, as waiters brought plate after plate of food — foie gras, turkey, pea soup, boiled oak mushrooms, kimchi, watermelon and ice cream, plus a drink branded “American Cola.”
By the morning of his second day, Pompeo had enough. Instead of the elaborate breakfast prepared for him, he ate toast and slices of processed cheese.
Days before the trip began, reporters traveling with Pompeo had to rush to get new passports with a special endorsement allowing entry to North Korea. In the end, authorities in Pyongyang never stamped them and the documents were returned unblemished. It was as if the secretary had never visited at all.
No glee here-just realistic observations: pompeo using standard us “negotiating” ploys to demand the maximum, ie total denuclearization (unilaterally) and then maybe we will talk. Somehow that never squares with the common understanding of the concept of diplomacy.
In other words, “it is my way or the highway” or “it is all or nothing!” Never a strategy for success.
Should have offered the North Koreans a Crispy Creme in Pyongyang on top of a Starbucks and MacDonalds. Kim looks like he could go for a good doughnut. Pomeo looks like he could vouch for where to find goods doughnuts.
The concurrent decision to open a larger ‘American Institute’ in Taiwan and guard it with 500 marines, and Republican Congressman Dana Rorabacher’s refloat of Trump’s two-China trial balloon, needed to be offset with something. A nice (formerly) Canadian Tim Hortons, maybe.
Kim knows when the spotlight isn’t all about him as well as when the spotlight is a targeting aid.
Moon needs to mediate. Pompeo’s attempt to take a leaf from prior administrations will not work. Unfortunately, Trump has not only NKorea to contend with, but domestic political pressures as well. The Dems, Neocons and war-loving Republicans want unilateral disarmament without the US budging a inch from its current position. Even a formal end to the Korean War seems to be out of the question until full denuclearization is achieved. And even then, questionable.