OPINION - EDITORIAL

Others say - Dangers of another summit

Negotiations between the United States and North Korea have been stalled for months, so the announcement on Friday that President Donald Trump will hold a summit next month with Kim Jong Un is a step forward. That confirmation came after Pyongyang's chief negotiator, Kim Yong Chol, met with Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Still, the resumption of diplomacy reflects another tactical victory by the Kim Jong Un regime over a divided and inept U.S. administration. Following the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, U.S. officials pressed North Korea's regime to show its seriousness about giving up nuclear weapons by providing an inventory of its warheads and production facilities. The regime angrily refused and stiffed Pompeo, even as it showered Trump with flowery letters said to be from Kim. Now it has apparently gotten its way: It is negotiating directly with Trump, who has professed himself to be entranced by the letters and "in love" with Kim.

Trump's diplomacy has not been fruitless: North Korea has now refrained from nuclear or missile tests for 13 months, breaking what looked, in Trump's first year in office, like a slide toward war. In his New Year's address, Kim asserted that the regime will not "produce, test nor proliferate any more nuclear weapons." But the regime has never made an unambiguous commitment to give up its arsenal of warheads and missiles, and Kim's speech reverted to Pyongyang's hard-line positions. He said that no steps would be taken until sanctions on the country were lifted, and that denuclearization must include the withdrawal of U.S. forces and assets from the region.

Perhaps there have been hints of greater flexibility in those letters Trump has been waving around. But the danger is that Kim will use a second summit to persuade a gullible U.S. president to yield valuable concessions in return for fool's gold. We'd like to hope that Trump's advisers, such as Pompeo, would dissuade him from reckless action; but then, as the president's recent decision to order U.S. troops out of Syria showed, he's not inclined to listen. All of which means that a resumption of U.S.-North Korean negotiations should be welcomed--but warily.

Editorial on 01/22/2019

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