Mike Pompeo goes to North Korea with low expectations but high pressure

Three months after his last trip to North Korea, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Un and other senior officials as the Trump Administration finally seeks tangible results in further denuclearization of the regime.

With negotiations stalled, the debate is about what the United States should demand of North Korea and what it is prepared to give in exchange.

But Pompeo downgrades expectations for the trip, despite pressure from allies and opponents of the region who want to start easing sanctions against North Korea and critics who point to the lack of verifiable and irreversible measures to dismantle its nuclear system. arsenal.

"The mission is to make sure we understand what each party is really trying to achieve," said Pompeo on Friday en route to Japan, his first stop on his journey through Asia to Japan. ;East.

AP

Pompeo is in its eighth meeting with North Korea – and at its fourth meeting since the Singapore summit. But there is growing doubt that President Donald Trump's diplomatic impulse will succeed if the two sides still do not understand what the other is trying to achieve or how.

Instead, the head of US diplomacy has been instructed by his boss to prepare a second summit with Kim Jong Un, which North Koreans advocate, but analysts warn that the US goals will be compromised.

North Korea "may indicate things that Trump has said and done to, in a way, undermine his own advisers at any time," said Sue Mi Terry, former CIA chief analyst for Korea and currently Strategic and International Studies. "If there is a second meeting, they are pretty sure that they can get more out of Trump than just dealing with government officials, including Pompeo."

Pompeo denied the light of day between Trump and him.

AP

While in Japan, Pompeo will meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Taro Kono before traveling to North Korea on Sunday. Heather Nauert, spokeswoman for the state department, will not spend the night to spend the night, but she announced this week that he would meet Kim.

After North Korea, Pompeo travels to South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha – before traveling to China to meet senior officials in a context of growing tensions with the Chinese, summed up by the fiery speech of Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday.

The way forward for future discussions is the critical question that many analysts are waiting for an answer this time. The United States had pressured North Korea to provide an inventory of its arsenal and nuclear facilities.

North Korea rejected this request – described as a "fiction" in a comment after Pompeo's last visit in July – and the US insistence that North Korea's denuclearization be a priority, leaving the talks open. stopped.

But that could end if the United States agreed to sign a declaration to formally end the Korean War, a major demand on the part of North Korea and a possibility to which Pompeo was open.

Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images, FILE

The big question now is what the United States demands in return. South Korea urges the United States to submit its next application, namely the dismantling of North Korea's main nuclear facility, Yongbyon, instead of declaring its inventory, which could lead to bickering without action. confidence building, according to Kang.

"If you see concrete steps that assure the United States and the rest of the world that concrete steps are being taken to eliminate very important elements of their nuclear program, it is a decisive step forward." that builds trust, "said Kang. The Washington Post interviewed last week.

This idea is supported by some analysts who believe that the United States must contain the North Korean nuclear threat and defuse tensions.

"A verifiable Yongbyon shutdown would make it more difficult for North Korea to further expand its stock of fissile material … would create momentum for other action measures for action and would save time." for the long and difficult steps on the road to denuclearization, "Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said in a statement, that a declaration of end of war would also help to" ease tensions, to to build confidence, and would not undermine the very strong policy and defense between the United States and South Korea. "Alliance."

Kang agreed, saying any statement would be "political" and "not a legally blinding treaty."

But several experts told ABC News that North Korea has not yet done enough to get an end-of-war declaration, much less a second Trump-Kim summit. The steps they have taken so far – starting to dismantle a key missile engine test site and blowing up the tunnels leading to a nuclear site – have unfolded without international inspectors present to check and could be reversed .

"None of them has addressed the essential task of denuclearization, namely, declaration, verification and timing," said Victor Cha, CSIS Chair for Korea, who was at one time the main candidate from Trump to the position of US Ambassador to South Korea.

Anyway, some analysts are skeptical that Pompeo will be able to accomplish this, given his short time on the ground.

KCNA VIA KNS / AFP / Getty Images, FILE

"It is unlikely that he will begin the necessary negotiations to reduce the chasm between policy differences between the United States and North Korea," said Bruce Klinger, former CIA Deputy Chief of Mission Korea. and now principal investigator at the Heritage Foundation.

Pompeo himself seemed hoping to find the logistics for a second summit for Trump and Kim, especially "options for venue and timing," he said Friday.

But even on that, he said, "I doubt we'll get there" on this trip.

Yet, given the president's recent expression for Kim – claiming at the UN General Assembly that they "fell in love" with the exchange of letters from Singapore – he seems that nothing comes to hinder the desire to meet Trump and Kim again.

"President Trump wants the second meeting, and I think he can almost rotate everything coming out of North Korea for the second summit to unfold anyway," Terry said.

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In addition to pressure from the President, Pompeo and his team are also facing increasing pressure from China, Russia and even South Korea for a relaxation of sanctions against North Korea. .

The regime's main trading partners, China and Russia, have collaborated to advocate for the removal of some US sanctions because North Korea has not tested a ballistic missile or nuclear device since last year . This coordination was clear on the world stage when the Foreign Ministers of both countries made statements to the Security Council.

However, even the US ally, South Korea seeks sanctions waivers after Moon and Kim announced a list of inter-Korean projects to work together, including the reopening of roads and railways and the creation of new economic zones.

"South Korea seems too eager to improve its relations and provide benefits to North Korea without requiring substantial progress in reducing the threat to North Korea's security," he said. declared Klinger.

The United States and South Korea both insisted they were away from North Korea.