hankyoreh

US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on Mar. 6. (EPA)

While the results of South Korea’s special delegation to the North have increased the possibility of at least exploratory dialogue between the North and the US, vacancies in the Trump administration’s team of negotiators with the North and its lack of preparations are being highlighted as variables that could slow down progress on talks. While the US had declared its North Korean policy to be “maximum pressure and engagement,” it has actually concentrated on pressure to the exclusion of the engagement (that is, dialogue and negotiations) that would be needed when the circumstances change.

Following the retirement at the end of last week of Joseph Yun, the US State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy, the Trump administration’s almost entire lack of any staff available to handle technical negotiations with North Korea appears to be the basic problem it is currently facing. Since Yun was in charge of the channel of regular communication between North Korea and the US known as the “New York channel,” there are concerns that the two sides will have trouble exchanging official messages.

In order to move from exploratory dialogue to high-level talks with figures such as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, it is essential that there be preliminary coordination and support by staff members with extensive experience in negotiating with North Korea. But there are few figures inside the State Department who have Yun’s level of experience. The US State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy is responsible not only for communicating with the North but also for coordinating North Korean policy with the other members of the Six-Party Talks, namely, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told reporters during a teleconference on Mar. 7 that the US needed to prepare for dialogue with North Korea by “quickly finding people who have direct face-to-face experience with North Koreans” rather than “people who have analyzed intelligence reports while sitting at their desk.”

“If North Korea has come this far, the US will probably agree to talks, but one of the biggest problems is who will be assigned to those talks,” said Sue Mi Terry, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

For these reasons, a number of options are being discussed for filling Yun’s shoes. The first idea is an infusion of “fresh blood.” CNN quoted a government official as saying the Trump administration is looking into the option of recruiting an outside expert as a special envoy to handle the North Korean issue along with Tillerson, though a final decision has yet to be made.

“The outside expert would be called upon to handle technical negotiations before Tillerson would step in to be at the table toward the end of any negotiation,” CNN said.

“The choice of outside expert could indicate which way the administration is leaning in its stance on Pyongyang,” CNN said.

A second option is to have Susan Thornton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, to also serve as the State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy. It is nearly certain that Thornton’s promotion to Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs will be ratified by the US Senate. One analyst at a think tank in Washington said that “Susan Thornton would be an excellent option.” One advantage of Thornton is that she has earned Tillerson’s full trust, but a potential problem is that the numerous issues in China-US relations would make it hard for her to concentrate strictly on negotiations with North Korea.

A third idea being tossed around in Washington is having an intelligence agency such as the CIA negotiate with North Korea. This reflects the fact that it may not be feasible to recruit outside talent in the short term. Furthermore, Trump has said on several occasions that he is fond of “secret negotiations,” though he was not necessarily speaking about the North, and clandestine negotiations with an intelligence agency would fit this description.

Along with the lack of a suitable negotiator, it is also unclear whether the US has drawn up a roadmap for negotiations and whether it has made the necessary preparations, both psychological and substantive, for providing North Korea with a corresponding reward.

“I’m not confident that the US government is prepared to quickly provide an incentive that is sufficient to motivate North Korea [to continue the negotiations],” Frank Aum, an analyst with the United States Institute of Peace, told the Hankyoreh. “If the US is not willing to put a peace treaty, relaxing sanctions and reducing the troop presence on the table at an early period in the negotiations, the talks could run aground just like the Six-Party Talks.”

On Mar. 5, the Wall Street Journal also zeroed in on the inadequacy of preparations by asking what carrot North Korea would get for giving up its nuclear program, alongside the stick of relentless economic pressure and the threat of military action.

Other obstacles that experts believe might crop up during the negotiations are the US’s inconsistent policy toward North Korea, caused by the continuing feud between the hawks and the doves in the government, as well as Trump’s unpredictable remarks and activity on Twitter.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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