ASSESSMENTS

In Nuclear Dialogue, North Korea Leaves U.S. With the Next Move

Mar 6, 2018 | 16:47 GMT

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, shakes hands with South Korean National Security Director Chung Eui Yong in Pyongyang, North Korea, on March 5, 2018.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, shakes hands with South Korean National Security Director Chung Eui Yong in Pyongyang, North Korea, on March 5, 2018. Kim has agreed to meet with South Korea's president in April.

(SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENTIAL BLUE HOUSE/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • North Korea will continue to use inter-Korean dialogue to break out of the constraints of the U.S. relationship.
  • But Pyongyang's apparent outreach to the United States could be contingent on changes to U.S. forces in the Korean Peninsula — concessions the United States is unlikely to give.
  • While China and Russia will push for a continued easing of tensions, U.S. ally Japan will be wary of a sudden shift in the U.S. position.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set late April as the date for the third inter-Korean summit, to be held in Panmunjom. Kim said he would be willing to hold talks with the United States geared toward normalization of relations and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and is willing to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile tests while engaged in dialogue. Kim said denuclearization was his father's dying wish, and something for which he also strived....

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