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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump

Discussions for holding a second North Korea-US summit are moving into full swing. On Sept. 10, the White House announced that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had suggested holding a second summit in the personal letter he sent to US President Donald Trump and that talks to arrange the summit were already underway.

The deadlock in negotiations on North Korea-US denuclearization turned a corner with the visit to North Korea by South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoy delegation and appears on course to be swiftly resolved with the delivery of Kim’s personal letter. With two leaders who have learned to trust each other by communicating through a “top-down” approach, the next question is whether North Korea and the US’s attempts to restart dialogue will culminate in a second summit.

If a summit is held, the location is likely to be Washington, DC. More important than that is the timing. In regard to that, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton said it’s completely possible that the summit could be held within the year. People are also saying that Trump prefers to hold the summit in October. Since the midterm elections in November largely function as referendum on the Trump administration at its halfway point, Trump is likely to conclude that it works to his advantage to hold the summit before the midterm elections.

And considering that Koreans need to pick up the pace in advancing inter-Korean relations, the sooner the North Korea-US denuclearization talks are held, the better.

But in order for the North Korea-US summit to be held at an early date, there needs to be a guarantee that the results will be capable of winning over popular opinion in the US. If the summit concludes without any noticeable results, it could lead to a backlash. In light of such considerations, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should be quickly sent to North Korea to coordinate the agenda of the summit.

The most crucial part of this phase is for Kim and Trump to have the courage to come up with a daring plan. In order to mollify domestic negativity that has hobbled Trump, North Korea and the US must take advantage of this dialogue phase to reach a major deal. One option worth considering is going beyond the question of the chronological order of declaring the end of the war and disclosing nuclear sites and weapons. North Korea could lay out a concrete roadmap for denuclearization running from its initial state to its conclusion, while the US could offer appropriate forms of political, economic and military compensation.

If North Korea and the US are unable to immediately undertake these quid-pro-quo negotiations, the South Korean government needs to mediate by making a proposal of its own. It would be good for Kim and Moon to finesse the roadmap for denuclearization during their third inter-Korean summit and for Moon to discuss this with Trump during their summit at the end of this month.

The conditions are already right for this, considering that Kim and Trump have asked Moon to serve as a negotiator. We hope that the leaders of North Korea and the US will draw up a plan for a grand bargain and that the second summit will be held soon, leading to big results.

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]