hankyoreh

Choe Son-hui

With the tensions that pervaded the Korean Peninsula in April easing and the administration of US President Donald Trump sending signals about reopening negotiations even as it maintains pressure on North Korea, there is reportedly a flurry of efforts to organize 1.5 track dialogue, or talks between figures from the government and the private sector.

“There appear to be efforts to make contact with North Korea at five locations altogether, including this meeting,” said a diplomatic source on May 8, referring to a meeting in Oslo, Norway, on May 8 and 9 between Choe Son-hui, chief of the North America bureau of North Korea’s foreign ministry, and former senior US government officials. “There apparently have not been any meetings in New York or elsewhere in the US,” the source added. Preparations had been underway for a 1.5 track dialogue between North Korea and the US in New York in early March, but the dialogue was cancelled after North Korea’s launch of the Pukguksong-2 missile and after the killing of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in February.

The US expert who attended the meeting in Norway was reportedly Robert Einhorn, former US State Department special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control. Einhorn, who is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, took part in the first 1.5 track meeting between North Korea and the US along with Choi and Jang Il-hun, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UN, in Geneva, Switzerland, in Nov. 2016, after the election of Donald Trump.

The US State Department distanced itself from the meeting, which it said was unrelated to the US government. “We’re tracking the Trump administration‘s involvement, and there’s no government involvement here, just as the US State Department said. This is a private-sector event,” said an official at South Korea’s Foreign Ministry when asked about the meeting between North Korea and the US. Nevertheless, an expert who belongs to an American think tank said that “the Trump administration is not showing much discomfort with meetings between private-sector experts and North Korea.” This appears to be because the Trump administration also senses the need to sound out North Korea’s intentions. Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting System quoted an anonymous source as saying that Choe was coordinating a separate meeting with officials from the Trump administration during the Choe’s stay in Europe.

It appears unlikely that the 1.5 track dialogue between North Korea and the US will have tangible results for now. It’s clear that the Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure and engagement” is aimed at making progress on denuclearization by increasing pressure on North Korea. On May 3, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also made clear that the US is “not going to negotiate [its] way to the negotiating table.”

The biggest reason that interest is nevertheless focusing on 1.5 track dialogue between North Korea and the US is because Trump himself has specifically mentioned the possibility of holding a summit with North Korea. “Given that South Korea is currently in the midst of a presidential election and that the US and China are applying pressure while also sending a message about dialogue, I think [the 1.5 track dialogue] may be focused on creating a mood for moving from the so-called ‘crisis phase’ that we’ve been in to a ‘dialogue phase,’” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

By Yi Yong-in and Cho Ki-weon, Washington and Tokyo correspondents

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