US-North Korea talks have many obstacles to overcome – starting with where to meet

Donald Kirk says the first hurdle in preparing the US-North Korea summit is the US’ unwillingness to meet Kim Jong-un on his home turf. However, a compromise only means moving on to thornier issues, like North Korea’s definition of ‘denuclearise’ and American unwillingness to withdraw from South Korea

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The Americans see the idea of Donald Trump going to Pyongyang as another attempt on the part of Kim Jong-un and his team of strategists to create obstructions to any serious attempt at negotiating an end to the North’s nuclear programme. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 5:15pm, 10 Apr 2018Updated: 10:24am, 11 Apr 2018

US and North Korean contacts, in secret talks about the time and place of a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, are at odds on at least one critical question.

The North Koreans, in unpublicised meetings with the Americans, are saying they want Trump to see Kim in Pyongyang. The Americans, of course, do not want Trump visiting North Korea, where Kim would be in the role of a head of state receiving the American guest as a supplicant seeking his approval.

Instead, in conversations via the CIA, the Americans are pressing for the talks to be held in the capital of a third country or in the truce village of Panmunjom on the North-South line, 60km north of Seoul. That’s where South Korean President Moon Jae-in is due to meet Kim on April 27, and the Americans see no reason why Kim cannot go to Panmunjom for his summit with Trump, tentatively agreed upon to take place in May.

The Americans see the idea of Trump going to Pyongyang as another attempt on the part of Kim and his team of strategists to create obstructions to any serious attempt at negotiating an end to the North’s nuclear programme. It might seem inconceivable that Trump would go to Pyongyang to meet Kim, but what if North Korea refused to budge?

Would the result be no summit – and North and South Korea both blaming the US for refusing to accommodate North Korea’s demands? Or would North Korea, if sincerely interested in a summit, accept other suggestions?

One possibility that has come up lately is Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. That would be an extremely interesting setting since Mongolia has, in recent years, been adopting a carefully contrived position between its huge neighbours to the north and south – Russia and China – and also looking for close ties with other Asian nations, notably Japan, as well as the US and European Union.