US President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Photo / AP file
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Photo / AP file
When he emerged from his summit with Kim Jong Un last month, US President Donald Trump triumphantly declared that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat and that one of the world's most intractable geopolitical crises had been "largely solved."
But in the days and weeks since then, US negotiators have faced stiff resistance from a North Korean team practiced in the art of delay and obfuscation.
Diplomats say the North Koreans have cancelled follow-up meetings, demanded more money and failed to maintain basic communications, even as the once-isolated regime's engagements with China and South Korea flourish.
A missile-engine testing facility that Trump said would be destroyed remains intact, and US intelligence officials say Pyongyang is working to conceal key aspects of its nuclear programme.
The lack of immediate progress, though predicted by many analysts, has frustrated the President, who has fumed at his aides in private even as he publicly hails the success of the negotiations.
"Discussions are ongoing and they're going very well," Trump told reporters last Wednesday.
The accounts of internal administration dynamics come from conversations with a half-dozen White House aides, State Department officials and diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Officials say Trump has been captivated by the nuclear talks, asking staffers for daily updates on the status of the negotiations. His frustration with the lack of progress has been coupled with irritation about the media coverage of the joint statement he signed on June 12 in Singapore, a document that contains no timeline or specifics on denuclearisation but has reduced tensions between the two countries.
"Trump has been hit with a strong dose of reality of North Korea's negotiating style, which is always hard for Americans to understand," said Duyeon Kim, a Korea expert at the Centre for a New American Security.
Trump's interest in the issue has put a particularly bright spotlight on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has tried to wring concessions from his counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief viewed by the Trump Administration as uncompromising and unable to negotiate outside the most explicit directives from Kim Jong Un.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the construction site of a hotel in North Hamgyong Province. Photo / AP
A low point from the perspective of US officials came during Pompeo's third visit to Pyongyang on July 6 when he pressed North Korean officials for details on their plans to return the remains of US soldiers killed during the Korean War, as they had agreed to do in Singapore. The issue had been discussed in several meetings and was viewed by the United States as an easy way for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity.
But when Pompeo arrived in Pyongyang, the North Koreans insisted they were still not ready to commit to specific plans, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions.
The delay angered US officials, who were under pressure to deliver given Trump's premature announcement on June 20 that North Korea had already "sent back" the remains of 200 soldiers.
The sentiment worsened when Kim Jong Un chose not to meet with Pompeo during his stay as had been expected. Pompeo later denied that a meeting was planned, a claim contradicted by diplomats who said the secretary initially intended to see the North Korean leader.
Unable to secure an agreement on remains during his trip, Pompeo scheduled a meeting between the North Koreans and their Pentagon counterparts to discuss the issue at the demilitarised zone on July 12. The North, however, kept US defence officials waiting for three hours before calling to cancel, the diplomats said. The North Koreans then asked for a future meeting with a higher-ranking military official.
"Leaving another US official standing at the altar, waiting forlornly for the North Korean representative to show up adds insult to injury," said Bruce Klingner, a North Korea scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Pyongyang has reverted to its heavy-handed negotiating tactics."
The Trump Administration has maintained a strong public show of support for the negotiations, even as North Korea denounced the United States' "unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearisation" after Pompeo's last visit and described the discussions as "cancerous."
Trump said he secured a commitment from Russia to "help" with the North Korea issue. "The process is moving along," he tweeted. "Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!"
But late last week in meetings with his aides, Trump bristled about the lack of positive developments in the negotiations. And on Saturday at the United Nations, his ambassador, Nikki Haley, accused Russia of blocking efforts to discipline North Korea's illegal smuggling.
Trump and his senior team "haven't given up entirely" on the goal of full denuclearisation, but they are worried, said one person familiar with the discussions.
Signs of uncertainty in North Korea’s commitments have been growing since it said this month that its will to denuclearize had been shakenhttps://t.co/oW99p0deqy
Climbing down from earlier soaring rhetoric, Trump told CBS that "I'm in no real rush. I mean whatever it takes, it takes," he said.
That more patient approach stands in contrast to earlier Trump Administration demands for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programme within a year.
"Trump is too vested to walk away right now," said Victor Cha, a North Korea expert who the Trump Administration nearly selected to be the next US ambassador to Seoul. "At least until after the Midterms."
US officials lay some of the blame on Kim Yong Chol, who despite being North Korea's chief negotiator has consistently stonewalled discussions by saying he is not empowered to talk about an array of pertinent issues.
That dynamic drew the ire of US officials in an early July meeting in Panmunjom when he refused to discuss the opening of a reliable communications channel or even specific goals of Pompeo's then-upcoming trip to Pyongyang, diplomats briefed on the meetings said.
"[Kim] has a reputation for being extremely rude and aggressive," said Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea scholar at Tufts University.
Kim Yong Chol's negotiating tactics so frustrated US officials that several expressed hope that he would be replaced as top negotiator by Ri Yong Ho, the North's more agreeable Minister of Foreign Affairs.
