Resume talks with North Korea

OPINION:

It’s time to resume talks with North Korea. During the past five years, when we didn’t talk to North Korea, the country built more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver these nuclear bombs as far as the U.S.

During this time, North Korea also established a close allied relationship with Russia, with a mutual defense treaty that resulted in its sending more than 12,000 combat troops to Russia’s Kursk region to join Russian forces in its war of aggression in Ukraine. North Korea is also providing Russia with significant quantities of artillery shells, ballistic missiles and drones.

In short, North Korea is now Russia’s principal ally and supplier of weaponry for Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Logically, this should not have happened. No doubt, North Korea remembers the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of its 1961 Peace and Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union. This treaty was replaced with a watered-down friendship treaty that made no mention of “mutual defense.” Russia ceased viewing North Korea as an ally. At that time, Russia’s focus was on improving economic relations with South Korea.

North Korea’s pivot to Russia in 2024 was a smart tactical move. It put North Korea on center stage with the introduction of its troops and weaponry to aid Russia in its war with Ukraine. It also sent a message to the U.S. and China that North Korea is an independent actor, not solely dependent on China and not fixated on a normal relationship with the U.S.

North Korea’s message was and is: We can go it alone, and we now have Russia, a nuclear superpower that accepts our status as a nuclear weapons state and provides us with the nuclear, missile and satellite technical support necessary to exponentially increase our nuclear and missile capabilities.

Is this what North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, really wants? Is this what his grandfather Kim Il-sung and father, Kim Jong-il, wanted for North Korea? Certainly, since 1994, North Korea has focused on having a normal relationship with the U.S.

For 13 years, ending in October 2016, with my last face-to-face meeting with North Korea’s vice foreign minister, I was repeatedly told that North Korea aspired to normal relations with the U.S., asking to be accepted as a nuclear weapons state and promising never to use those weapons offensively. The weapons were a deterrent to prevent war, and North Korea would be a good friend of the U.S., no longer tethered to China. North Korea cited Pakistan as a model to emulate (i.e., You did it with Pakistan; you can do it with us).

In the next few weeks, Mr. Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung will have a summit. Trade issues will undoubtedly be discussed, but I think a fair amount of time will be spent on national security issues and developments with North Korea.

A few days ago, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of Mr. Kim, said Kim Jong-un’s relationship with Mr. Trump wasn’t bad, implying that dialogue with the U.S. was possible. Ms. Kim conditioned such dialogue on the U.S. “accepting North Korea as a nuclear power.” Ms. Kim spoke of the changed reality since the Trump-Kim summits in Singapore (2018) and Hanoi (2019) and the symbolic Demilitarized Zone meeting in 2019.

That changed reality is North Korea’s mutual defense treaty with Russia and its military assistance to Russia for its war in Ukraine. It’s also the nuclear and missile support Russia is providing to North Korea. This new relationship with Russia has emboldened Mr. Kim and could incite the North Korean leader to be overly aggressive and optimistic in his relationship with South Korea.

While saying dialogue with the U.S. was possible, Ms. Kim was clear in stating that South Korea was the enemy and North Korea was not interested in a dialogue with South Korea. Despite Ms. Kim’s harsh words for South Korea and the new government of President Lee Jae-myung, which most South Koreans have become accustomed to hearing, the North recently stopped its harassing broadcasts to the South. This was apparently in response to the new Lee government’s halting all its broadcasts to North Korea, including the National Intelligence Service’s daily broadcast of news, dramas and K-pop music.

South Korea knows that the U.S. position on North Korea’s retaining nuclear weapons — complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — has not changed. This was the language Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, accepted in the Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement of the six-party talks and the language Mr. Kim personally accepted in the June 2018 Singapore summit: “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Now is the time for Mr. Trump to personally reach out to Kim Jong-un and arrange for senior officials from both countries to meet to arrange for a third summit. No one wants a repeat of the failed Hanoi summit, so preliminary arrangements must be thorough, with agreement on a deliverable: further meetings of the principals or their senior representatives and agreement on what the U.S. and North Korea are prepared to offer.

North Korea can and should halt all nuclear tests, fissile material production, ballistic missile launches, cyber and other illicit activities directed at the U.S. and end its military support to Russia for its war of aggression with Ukraine. Moves by the U.S. should include easing and lifting sanctions imposed during and after 2016, economic development assistance, security assurances, a path to ending the Korean War with a peace treaty, and the eventual establishment of liaison offices in our respective capitals.

The issue of denuclearization would initially encompass a statement from both sides as to their ultimate goals. For North Korea, that would be acceptance as a nuclear power; for the U.S., it would be complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This will be a subject further discussed once we move to the lifting/removal of sanctions and North Korea halts nuclear tests and fissile material production and suspends missile launches. It will likely be a protracted process, requiring considerable time for negotiations.

Mr. Trump has the personal relationship with Mr. Kim to resume talks with a North Korea that is building more nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them while embracing a revanchist Russian Federation.

• The author is the former special envoy for the six-party talks with North Korea and former director of the National Counterproliferation Center. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.