North Korea has probably not started to denuclearize since the Trump-Kim summit.

Before President Trump flew to his summits with NATO leaders, then with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the administration has another profile, but no less mission Tense Diplomatic: Another trip to Pyongyang in early July, by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

This will be Pompeo's first meeting with North Korean officials since Trump's summit on June 12 with Kim Jong-un. The precise agenda is not clear – the fact that the meeting, reported by the Financial Times and attributed to four sources, has not yet been announced by the State Department – but the main subject will probably be the inaction of North Korea. , on the dismantling of its nuclear arsenal.

As almost all outside observers noticed at the time, the joint statement, signed by Trump and Kim at their Singapore summit, is among the heavier documents of the day. recent diplomatic history. In this document, Kim promised to "work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula", but nothing has been said on a timetable (denuclearize or declare how much nuclear weapons Kim currently has), procedures verification or even the definition of a litigation. denuclearization.

Still, Trump came out of the summit in a haze of triumph, claiming that the two leaders had signed a "very, very complete document," that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat, and that Kim – a man worthy of his "confidence" -to start "de-nuking" immediately upon his return to his homeland. Pompeo, although not very naive by nature, swallowed a glass of Team Trump Kool-Aid, announcing just after the summit that more detailed discussions would begin in a few days and would scream at a journalist who had the audacity to ask if an agreement, once struck, would be verifiable.

It would be embarrassing to see that the North Koreans have not taken a single step towards disarmament, or even serious negotiations on the subject. Yet, it is precisely the state of affairs.

It would be embarrassing to see that the North Koreans had not taken a single step towards disarmament, nor even towards negotiations .

The highly regarded 38 North site, devoted to the detailed analysis of June 21, North Korea was publishing commercial satellite images, revealing that work, including infrastructural improvements, was continuing in some cases in the plutonium production reactor and uranium enrichment plant of the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center.

Site analysts noted that this work "should not be seen as relevant to the promise of denuclearization of North Korea", as it can be expected that the regime will continue its activities until Pyongyang "

And that's the point: no such orders have been issued – and we can not expect them anytime soon, because the statement that Trump and Kim signed n & # 39; 39 is not a remote agreement.

Siegfried Hecker, a professor of physics at Stanford University and a prominent expert on North Korea's nuclear program, sent it to me by e-mail: "North Koreans do not have the right to do anything." have not yet declared that they would close the nuclear complex. they do not have. "

Hecker warned that satellite images reveal little, in one way or another, whether North Koreans are accelerating or slowing the production of nuclear weapons. The plutonium reactor may or may not operate at full power; the centrifuge plant could enrich the uranium to a high or low level. This type of knowledge can only come from international inspectors, authorized by an international agreement to be inside factories.

Not only did Pompeo's appointed negotiators not come close to reaching such an agreement, but they also did not break North Korea's resistance to begin negotiations.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, US negotiators complained in cables in Washington that their North Korean counterparts were not moving on vital issues – defining denuclearization, setting calendars, disclosing their current stocks, etc. . The White House responded, in fact: Just get the written joint statement, forget the details . Trump wanted the summit, and he wanted it on June 12th. The North Koreans knew this, which gave them a lot of weight. Since the summit, Trump and Pompeo have remained more eager to reach an agreement than Kim – and so North Koreans continue to land, having no reason to behave otherwise.

Back in Singapore, Trump also agreed to cancel the annual military exercises between the United States and South Korea, to the surprise of the South Koreans and the Pentagon, in exchange for the return of the United States. absence of Kim's new commitments. Pompeo and other officials noted that strong economic sanctions against Kim's regime would remain in place until disarmament went well. But the United States does not trade with North Korea, so the sanctions, whether they are maintained or lifted, have no effect. They had some impact when Trump – and before him President Obama – persuaded the United States Security Council to sanctify the sanctions. However, especially since the summit and the resulting reduction in tensions, China and South Korea have significantly reduced the barriers. Goods of all kinds enter and leave North Korea; Trucks, which were once inspected at the borders for prohibited materials, are now, for the most part, passed without delay.

I asked former US officials, who know North Korea and the arms control negotiations, how long Kim could continue to drag Trump, make a few feints and make gestures Disarmament – blowing up a test site, dismantling a missile, exporting a few grams of plutonium – without making, or accepting, anything significant. They felt that he could maintain this for about a year before the game was inevitably clear.

It is perhaps for this reason that Pompeo flies to Pyongyang the week before Trump's travels to its heights with NATO (where the allies fear that it will resume). the insults he launched at the G-7 summit in Quebec) and with Putin. fear that he will conclude a case as empty as that with Kim or, perhaps, even more dangerous). Perhaps Pompeo's hope is that Kim can be persuaded to make a gesture that at least promotes the appearance of diplomatic progress, which Trump could then embellish for a fist triumph before going to misery. in Brussels and the bear trap in Helsinki. But what will Kim ask for this favor? And for how long, and at what cost for American prestige and security, will the charade continue?