Baik Sung-won of VOA’s Korean Service contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump may have jumpstarted a new round of working-level talks with Pyongyang at his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but experts say their handshake is meaningless unless negotiators make a headway in bridging the countries’ divergent approaches toward denuclearization.
“It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend,” Trump tweeted on Monday, the day after the two leaders met. “We had a great meeting…I look forward to seeing him again soon…In the meantime, our team will be meeting to work on some solutions to very long-term and persistent problems. No rush, but I am sure we will ultimately get there.”
It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend. We had a great meeting, he looked really well and very healthy – I look forward to seeing him again soon….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
“The meeting itself is a massive breakthrough,” said Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest. “While a great deal of work remains, it is these small steps that will help create the trust needed to take giant leaps toward bigger diplomatic initiatives.”
Gary Samore, former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction during the Obama administration and current senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center’s Korea Project, said, “The resumption of U.S.-[North Korean] working level talks is a welcome development.”
He continued, “But [there] is no reason to believe the talks will produce rapid progress because both sides appear to remain deeply divided on denuclearization.”
Pyongyang favors taking a phased approach with each step taken toward denuclearization rewarded with some corresponding measure. Washington has been interested in drawing up a comprehensive denuclearization deal that includes the dismantlement of Pyongyang’s entire nuclear program.
Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, cautioned that “a Trump-Kim handshake at the DMZ will only have significance if it succeeds in starting detailed negotiations that have eluded both sides following [their summits in] Singapore and Hanoi.”
Trump and Kim first met last year at their summit in Singapore where