The long awaited summit between the American President and North Korean leader has come and gone. In this report, CHINWE MADUAGWU, takes a look at the meeting and what the future holds.
Call it monumental, unprecedented, epochal, historic, and you would be right. By this time last year, nobody would have thought such a meeting possible; President Donald Trump of the United States and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), shaking hands, sitting together in a room, having a civilised conversation? It was unthinkable, yet it has happened.
The June 12, summit between the leaders had taken world stage months before it took place. Would it hold, would it not hold? The world waited with bated breath while the two leaders sized each other up, hauled insults on one another and prevaricated.
The road to Singapore was indeed long, tense and tortuous, but despite all odds, it came to be.
Before the summit the United States had been emphatic that North Korea must denuclearise. Complete, verifiable denuclearisation had been the demand. Relations between the two leaders had been a touch-and-go, cat and mouse kind of relations with Mr. Trump, nicknaming Jong-un “the little rocket man,” while the North Korean leader reciprocated by calling him a “mentally deranged US dotard.”
Prior to the idea of a meeting between the two being muted, both men were generous with insults and denigrating words and the idea of the two of them sitting down to a meeting was inconceivable. But after months of insults and nuclear tests by North Korea, the North Korean leader, through the South Korean National Security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, extended an invitation for a meeting to the US President, which he accepted.
The months to the meeting witnessed many tense moments with Trump taking to Twitter severally to cancel the meeting. But all that, as it is said, is history. The meeting has come and gone, agreements have been reached and a communiqué issued.
A joint statement by the two leaders stated that, “President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new US-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
“Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un state the following: The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity; The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
“Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.”
At the post summit press conference, President Trump, went off the curve and added to the communiqué that the US-South Korea military exercises would be suspended while negotiations continue for the denuclearisation of the Peninsula.
This has long been a point of contention for the North Koreans. In defence or justification of his position, President Trump described the military exercises as “provocative.”
While acknowledging that the US-DPRK summit, the first in history – was an epochal, monumental, and unprecedented event of great significance in overcoming years of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, some questions that agitate the mind are, Can the summit be termed a success? Did it meet expectations?
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The Director, Research and Studies, Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, Professor Aja Agwu, said no. He gave his reasons: “Some people say that national interest is the interest of the leadership, that it is the interest of government in power, this is an example of that skeptical assertion and it is not supposed to be. National interest is supposed to be the interest of the nation not the interest of the leader. If you look at what is going on in the US it is Trump, Trump and Trump and Trump’s ego because when America is out there negotiating, America is not just negotiating for its own interests, it is also negotiating for the interest of its allies and apart from that when you look at the whole institutional architecture within with this meeting took place, it is a violation of established diplomatic process.”
According to him, there ought to have been issues taken care of before the summit took place, some ground works done so that at the end of the day the summit would consolidate. “You cannot hold a summit and then come out to say future things will be done. It’s not like the summit would exhaust all the possibilities, but it should have brought negotiations to a level. Look at the Iran nuclear deal, before the deal was inked, there were discussions and negotiations, after inking the deal there was no other thing to talk about. One is not saying that a summit is exhaustive of any problem be it bilateral or multilateral, but now you have a summit in which it is only the President of the United States that has made concessions by announcing that the military exercise with South Korea will no longer hold. That is not expected of the united states,” he said.
Speaking further the Professor said, “the military exercise is the bulwark of America’s security arrangement with the Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, but this man got up over night and said he was suspending it. Meanwhile, we have not seen any substantial concession from Kim Jong-un. So, it is a betrayal of the allies and it is a betrayal of American foreign policy process, and from my own point of view, I don’t think the summit has met the expectations of observers or the United States and its allies. But then, it is all about, Trump. It is the ego of Donald that has been served here.”
Form the point of the view of North Korea, however, Professor Agwu said the summit can be seen as a success. “That America has agreed to cancel military exercise with South Korea is a plus for Kim and come to think of it, although he has made open show of destroying nuclear test site, we have to remember that his father also destroyed one in the 90s, but that destruction did not stop the progress that has been made today in the nuclearisation of North Korea. So that he destroyed what he called nuclear test site was not enough. In fact, North Korea has arrived in terms of nuclear war capability. It is definitely a plus for the leader of North Korea.”
What then will be the likely consequence (s) of President Trump’s decision? Professor Agwu said; “This is going to disrupt America’s relationship with its South East Asian allies and even disrupt expectations from the allies in terms of transatlantic relations.
“Trump has been a disrupter from the days of his campaign. Remember also that at the G7 meeting, he took on Trudeau of Canada and it is an established fact that his policy towards Western Europe is in jeopardy now because of the way he has altered the apple cart. I think the allies will be less trusting when it comes to what Trump can do, not what the United States can do because it is just Trump, not the United States. Another government that comes into power may undo what he has done just like he has undone the Iran Nuclear deal.
“Another consequence of this is that there will be less coherence and less unity with its allies and I think the alliance is something they must keep not just for their own sake but for the sake of world peace. I think the Americans will take him up. They must have seen the futility of allowing an imperial presidency to go wild without being checked. Before now, we thought that American presidency was such that the institution of the legislature will be checking the presidency but we have seen differently. If they had gone through their normal treaties frame work, Trump alone would not have used executive order to pull out of the Iran and Paris deals. This is an eye opener for them to start reworking their system and see how they can put in more checks and balances such that an imperial presidency will not wake up overnight and upset the apple cart,” Prof. Agwu said.
From Asia to Europe to the US, the summit has been hailed. However, there are still serious concerns as to how things will play out on the Peninsula and whether Kim Jong-un will keep up his own end of the agreement to denuclearise (has he truly agreed to that?) and the time frame within which it will happen seeing as non was set at the summit.