Wednesday 7 March 2018

Will Kim Jong-un denuke?

Is it really possible that North Korea will this time actually negotiate to denuclearise? We've been here so many times. Every president since Bill Clinton has been made the same promises by Pyongyang and every time the regime has then reneged on the deal, blasting off another long-range ballistic missile or carrying out a nuclear test. In 1994 - 24 years ago - President Bill Clinton thought he had signed an historic deal to end the nuclear crisis with North Korea. Washington and Pyongyang signed the Agreed Framework under which North Korea's nuclear programme would be frozen and relations between the two countries would get back to normal. The US also promised to help build two light-water reactors in North Korea to replace the nuclear plants which were capable of producing fuel for bombs. But the deal was never fulfilled, there were long delays and problems in Congress. The historic deal collapsed. The only encouraging thing about the Agreed Framework was that it showed negotiations with North Korea were possible. Since then, there have been other attempts at freezing North Korea's nuclear programme but to no avail. And here we are in 2018 with a North Korea on the verge of becoming a fully-flegded nuclear weapons power. So how seriously do we take Kim Jong-un's offer to talk to the US about denuclearising - genuinely denuclearising, ie scrapping his dream of having nuclear weapons big enough and long-range enough to hit the US? Is it possible that the North/South Korean family affair at the Winter Olympics has turned his head and he now wants love and peace and stability and America as a partner? I very seriously doubt it. I wish I could believe that the young leader has come to his senses and has realised that he is pushing his country towards some sort of Armageddon unless he backs down. I really wish I could. But I can't. Why go to such lengths to develop and test a nuclear missile programme if only to give them all up in return for food and American tourists? It all sounds hopeful, and even Trump said he thought Kim Jong-un was sincere. But I'm too sceptical and cynical, after so many years of blatant breaches of every international mandate, to believe that the North Korean leader has becme transformed by the Great Snow Charm Offensive. I'm sure there will be meetings, secret and otherwise, American envoys will go back and forth, but Kim Jong-un is playing a cunning diplomatic game and we would be wise not to be fooled.

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