U.S., North Korea to start drafting summit agreement this week

Feb 18, 2019, 09:13 am

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Kim Chang-son, a senior official of North Korea’s State Affairs Commission, known as a close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, enters into a hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, Saturday. / Source: Yonhap News

By AsiaToday reporter Heo Go-woon

With the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un set to take place within ten days, both North Korean and American sides are expected to start penning the text of the joint summit statement this week.

While the first working-level talks held in Pyongyang earlier this month were aimed to confirm each other’s stances, the outcome of this week’s negotiations on concrete details of denuclearization and reciprocal measures will be a major watershed for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

According to Reuters, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will arrive in Vietnam on Feb. 25 and meet Vietnam’s president and general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, ahead of his second summit with Trump. Kim also had held talks with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ahead of his first summit with Trump last June.

Kim’s close aide and the director of North Korea’s State Affairs Commission, Kim Chang-son, and his U.S. counterpart and the deputy chief of operations at the White House, Daniel Walsh, reportedly arrived in Hanoi on Saturday. The two are expected to coordinate on the summit’s logistics and protocols this week.

North Korea and the United States are also expected to hold a second round of working-level talks this week to discuss agenda and preparations. U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, who recently met with North Korea’s special representative for U.S. affairs Kim Hyok-chol in Pyongyang, met with National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang and leaders from South Korea’s five main political parties in Washington DC and reportedly told them that the North Korean and American sides will start drafting the agreement at their next meeting.

Trump and Kim are expected to reach a consensus on the details of the agreement made at their first summit last year, including the establishment of new U.S.-North Korea relations, the building of a lasting peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, and the commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Biegun said that the agenda for the second summit will be consisted of more than 12 items. The list could include North Korea’s denuclearization measures, such as dismantling Yongbyon nuclear facilities and closing Tongchang-ri missile testing facility, in exchange for partial sanctions relief from the U.S., a declaration formally ending the Korean War, expansion of humanitarian aid, and the establishment of liaison office.

Besides, there are prospects that there will be exceptional measures involving sanctions relief, which is what North Korea wants the most. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted at easing U.S.-led international sanctions against the North. “It’s our full intention of getting a good outcome in exchange for relieving those sanctions (against North Korea),” Pompeo said in a Feb.13 interview with the CBS network. “It will be up to Chairman Kim to make this decision.”

His remarks fanned speculation that the U.S. could proceed with loosening sanctions to allow reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Mount Kumgang tourist resort as well as increasing the annual supply limit of 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum products for North Korea.

However, some experts say it will be hard for the United States to include specific countermeasures in the summit agreement unless North Korea submits a complete list of its weapons and facilities and its plan for dismantling nuclear weapons.

“The important thing of the second U.S.-North Korea summit would be the goals and timetable for denuclearization,” said Moon Sung-mook, head of the Korea Research Institute’s National Unification Strategy Center. “It will be the worst case scenario if the United States do not proceed to this point and provides corresponding measures in due degree.”

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