NK announces Closure Of Nuclear Test Site, Suspending Missile Tests

[Dill]

(12-10-2018, 10:30 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I was reading articles about North Korea building sites and about what a mess the State Dept is and it reminded me of this thread.

Funny to look back and read those old posts--those who fell hook-line-and-sinker for the great showman's summit "achievements," and/or didn't want to hear about Trump's "cluelessness."

This Uri Friedman Atlantic article from June is the most positive thing I have read about the summit. It argues that, as of June, the US and NK were not threatening to destroy one another. And that is an accomplishment.

Here’s What Trump Actually Achieved With North Korea: It wasn’t what he said. But it was much more than nothing.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/trump-kim-korea-success/563012/
Also, Friedman argues there is an experiment under way: previously, all NK diplomacy has proceeded from the ground up; Trump is trying a top down approach, based on a personal relationship with Kim.
We should know how well this worked by the coming March. I like Friedman's fresh take, but I still see no reason to assume Trump has the focus and knowledge to follow through, and with a WH and State Dept. in shambles.

As of Nov. 7, the perils of the top-down approach were apparent. Suddenly, the U.S. needs to ease sanctions before concrete steps to denuclearization can occur.
Trump’s North Korea diplomacy quietly stalls
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/07/trumps-north-korean-diplomacy-quietly-stalls/?utm_term=.689e11adee44

Quote: Will Ripley @willripleyCNN

The source predicts upcoming talks between the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and ex-spymaster Kim Yong Chol will not be successful, unless the US shows new willingness to ease sanctions before complete denuclearization.
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2:03 AM - Nov 6, 2018

The issues with this approach were reinforced last Friday, when North Korean state media suggested that the “arrogant” behavior of the United States could lead Pyongyang to restart its “byungjin” policy — simultaneously focusing on economic development and its nuclear program. It was effectively a warning that North Korea could soon resume the weapons and missile tests that led to so much tension in 2017.
Robert Carlin, a former CIA analyst and State Department specialist on Korea, wrote that the commentary was a new level of warning from North Korea. It “goes to the heart of Pyongyang’s concern that the US has been moving backwards, away from the agenda the two leaders laid out in the Singapore Summit joint statement,” Carlin wrote in a post for the North Korea-focused website 38 North.

The latest warning followed a number of other jibes from North Korean state media, including one that took the unprecedented step of criticizing Trump by name. As NK News noted, it was the “first negative casting of the American president on U.S.-DPRK diplomacy since the Singapore summit took place,” suggesting that even the high-level goodwill between Trump and Kim could be falling short.

For Trump, the breakdown in North Korean diplomacy would be a personal failure. The U.S. leader long suggested that he could solve the North Korea problem if he met with Kim himself — and he had a point. His willingness to meet the North Korean leader face-to-face this year set things in motion in a way previous U.S.-North Korea meetings, which involved officials at a lower levels, did not.