After the meeting, which was the highest-level direct talks between the two countries since 2000, Kim announced that North Korea was suspending its nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile testing that had provoked bellicose threats from Trump over the past year. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is scheduled to have his own meeting with Kim to discuss normalizing relations on April 27.
KEVIN MARTIN: Upcoming this week will be this first summit between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in, and I actually think that’s the more important summit. If the two leaders of the two Koreas are able to continue to make progress – which has been astonishing if you just look at this year, the few months of this year, the astonishing progress towards peace and reconciliation. There’s no reason to think that they won’t continue to make progress.
Just last week, they’re talking about a peace treaty and they’re talking about relaxing the demilitarized zone between the two countries, which of course is a misnomer. It’s the most heavily militarized patch of earth. They’ve put so much on the table. I really have a hard time seeing how it’s not going to be a success. Not that Trump or the United States or someone else couldn’t foul it up later.
But I do think this is the more important summit coming up this week. It will set the context for future meetings, including with Trump and Kim Jong Un. And it’s tempting to look at what are U.S. interests or Chinese interests or Japanese interests in the region and you can’t be naïve. Those are all certainly factors, but this is about Koreans making peace. This is about the Korean people wanting a new path forward away from the confrontation that has been so dangerous for the last 70 years. And this is the Korean Peninsula were talking about. It’s not Florida, it’s not Cape Cod. If the United States can’t get behind this and support Koreans making peace, then we need to stay out of the way. But I do think that it will be historic this week and I fully expect that they will continue to make progress.
BETWEEN THE LINES: On the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program, Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, announced that he was suspending his nuclear weapons and ballistic missile tests for the time being, but yet there seems to be some disconnect between the U.S. and particularly Donald Trump and North Korea. When it comes to the term denuclearization, a lot of Korea observers think that it’s a remote or non-existent possibility that North Korea will just junk all of its nuclear weapons here as an incentive to lift U.S. sanctions. What are your thoughts about the prospects for denuclearization on the Korean peninsula?
KEVIN MARTIN: I think that could go any number of ways. And, of course, even if there is a difference in interpretation, let’s just say for a minute, everybody including South Korea and Japan, China, U.S., accepted North Korea’s interpretation – that North Korea will get rid of its nuclear weapons if the United States ceases – what they say, introducing nuclear weapons into the region. Well, so what, we can still incinerate North Korea or any place on the planet, you know, with our ICBMs that are based here in this country. So, I’m not sure why that issue is getting such play, unless or until the United States gets serious about getting rid of all nuclear weapons, which we should be doing, as should all the nuclear states.
BETWEEN THE LINES: What is the connection in your mind between the fate of the Iran international nuclear agreement that Donald Trump and his administration has threatened to repeal – and the possibility of some substantive agreement between the U.S. and North Korea on North Korea’s nuclear weapons?
KEVIN MARTIN: It’s very dangerous. Why would North Korea make an agreement with us if we’re trashing an agreement we made just three years ago that everybody except Donald Trump says that Iran is complying with? It just would undercut any U.S. credibility and would almost be a signal that we’re not serious about negotiating with North Korea.
Listeners could call Congress – 202-224-3121. We and other groups are doing a call-in day this week in support of something called a No Unconstitutional Strike on North Korea Act. In the Senate, it’s S2016. In the House, it’s HR 4837. Easiest might be able to just Google “no unconstitutional strike on North Korea.” This is the way that Congress can stand up and say that we’re for peace and diplomacy and also that any president, not just Trump, does not have the authority to attack North Korea, and this is part of a broader conversation about Congress retaking its authority over declaring war.
