North Korea mentions summit failure in party newspaper

North Korea is changing its narrative of the Hanoi summit. An article published on page six of Workers’ Party paper Rodong Sinmun stated the world was holding the United States responsible for the end of the bilateral summit without an agreement.

“Those inside and outside North Korea who couldn’t hope enough for good results at the second U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi are unanimously holding the United States responsible for the end of the summit without an agreement, while being unable to hide their regrets,” the Rodong stated on Friday.

The newspaper also stated the “whole world hopes the peace process in the Korean Peninsula will flow smoothly.”

The admission of the summit’s abrupt end is a first; as recently as Thursday North Korea was stating negotiations are feasible with a “fair proposal, appropriate attitude and will to solve the problem.”

The article may reflect the changing reality of North Korea, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap. Ordinary North Koreans have more access to outside world information, and they continue to move across the China-North Korea border. State authorities may have decided to report factual events for practical reasons, according to Yonhap’s analysis.

As speculation continues over what will happen after the Hanoi summit, South Korea appointed a new unification minister, Kim Yeon-chul, president of government-run think tank Korea Institute for National Unification. JTBC reported Friday Kim Yeon-chul seeks to pursue the resumption of U.S.-North Korea negotiations.

[UPI]

Trump voices disappointment over North Korean rocket site report

Fresh reports of missile-related activity in North Korea have emerged, confirmed by South Korean spy chief Suh Hoon, according to the JoongAng Ilbo. Hours after Donald Trump said he would be “very disappointed” if separate reports about a rocket launch site being rebuilt proved to be true.

“I would be very disappointed if that were happening,” Trump said in the Oval Office, when asked if North Korea was breaking a promise.

“Well, we’re going to see. It’s too early to see … It’s a very early report. …But I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim, and I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll take a look. It’ll ultimately get solved.”

Trump, eager for a big foreign policy win on North Korea that has eluded predecessors for decades, has repeatedly stressed his good relationship with Kim. In 2018 he went as far as saying they “fell in love” but the bonhomie has failed so far to bridge the wide gap between the two sides.

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, warned on Tuesday that new sanctions could be introduced if North Korea did not scrap its nuclear weapons program.

[The Guardian]

North Korea seen reassembling rocket test site

Satellite imagery suggests that North Korea may be taking steps to reactivate a partially decommissioned long-range rocket test site on the country’s west coast. Experts say they see evidence that workers are rebuilding at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. In a matter of days, a rocket-engine test stand and a large transfer structure have been reassembled, according to Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a senior fellow for imagery analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The structures were taken down over the course of last summer, Bermudez says, and reassembled in a matter of days. “We’ve seen a remarkably quick rebuilding,” he says.

News of the apparent activity comes less than a week after a second summit between the U.S. and North Korea ended in stalemate. President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Feb. 27 and 28. But the two sides wrapped up talks early after it became apparent that they were far apart on any deal over North Korea’s nuclear program.

The Sohae facility, also referred to as Dongchang-ri and Tongchang-ri, is the site from which North Korea attempted satellite launches in 2012 and 2016. It’s also the location of a test stand that Pyongyang has used to fire some of its rocket engines on the ground. More recently, Sohae figured prominently in the ongoing talks between North Korea and the United States. Last June, after the first U.S.-North Korea summit, in Singapore, Trump said Kim had given his word that he would close “a major missile-engine testing site.”

“I got that after we signed the agreement,” Trump said at a press conference following his meeting with Kim. “I said, ‘Do me a favor. You’ve got this missile-engine testing site. We know where it is because of the heat.’ … I said, ‘Can you close it up?’ He’s going to close it up.”

During a summit in September with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Kim followed up with an official announcement that he was closing Sohae. (In that announcement, he referred to Sohae as Dongchang-ri.) Satellite imagery suggested that North Korea did begin disassembling the site in the summer of 2018.

Now, Bermudez says, the test stand appears almost completely reassembled, and the building has been rebuilt with all but part of its roof. The work happened sometime between Feb. 20 and March 2, when the commercial images were taken by the company DigitalGlobe. Given that the site has lain dormant for months, Bermudez believes the work probably took place after Feb. 28, when the Trump-Kim summit concluded unsuccessfully.

Even if Sohae is being rebuilt after the failed summit, Kim isn’t violating any agreement with the U.S., notes David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Ultimately, the decision to rebuild Sohae, like the decision to take it apart, may be largely symbolic. Bermudez says the facility is not believed to be at the center of North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“All North Korean ballistic missiles today, maybe with one or two exceptions, can be launched from mobile launchers,” he says.

[NPR]

Trump has given North Korea a valuable bargaining chip for free

The South Korean capital, Seoul, is within artillery range of North Korea. Millions of South Koreans could be shelled within minutes if a war breaks out. While South Korea’s government favors improved relations with Pyongyang, it also understands the value of a strong military. The Trump administration should be helping a strong ally, not undermining it.

President Trump was …wrong to walk away from annual military exercises with our South Korean allies. That move raises fears that walking away from our decades-long alliance could be next.

Trump says he decided to suspend this year’s two land exercises, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, to save money and to help improve relations with Pyongyang. Neither explanation justifies his decision.

The cost to hold the exercises, estimated at $14 million, is trivial in the context of a $700 billion U.S. defense budget. Moreover, the South Korean government just agreed to increase the amount it pays each year for basing U.S. troops in the country by more than $50 million. Insisting our allies pay more to get less is a terrible idea.

Trump also apparently acceded to this key North Korean demand without getting anything in return. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had specifically protested the annual exercises in his New Year’s Day speech, reiterating a longtime demand.

[Excerpt of Washington Post Opinion]

North Korea offers its own version of Summit collapse

As President Trump headed home dealless from Vietnam following his aborted summit with Kim Jong Un, North Korean officials held an impromptu middle-of-the-night news conference at a Hanoi hotel, offering an account about the failed talks that differed from Trump’s.

“What we proposed was not the removal of all sanctions but the partial removal,” Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said through an interpreter in Hanoi. He said North Korea sought relief from five U.N. sanctions imposed in 2016 and 2017 that hurt the country’s economy, out of a total of 11, in exchange for disabling its main nuclear complex.

He said that in exchange for partial sanctions relief, North Korea was willing to “permanently and completely dismantle all the nuclear material production facilities in the Yongbyon area, including plutonium and uranium, in the presence of U.S. experts.” In addition, Ri said the North would also put a “permanent halt” on nuclear and long-range missile testing “in order to lower the concerns of the United States.”

“However, during the meeting, the United States insisted that we should take one more step besides the dismantlement of nuclear facilities in the Yongbyon area,” Ri said. “Therefore, it became crystal clear that the United States was not ready to accept our proposal.”

Ri did not specify what that extra step was.

Ri indicated that another meeting may well be fruitless as the North will not budge. “Our proposal will never be changed.”

[NPR]

Trump and Kim Jong un cut short their summit

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un abruptly cut short their two-day summit in Hanoi Thursday after the two leaders failed to reach an agreement to dismantle that country’s nuclear weapons.

Although Kim said he was ready in principle to denuclearize, his talks with Trump collapsed unexpectedly as the two men and their delegations departed their meeting site in Vietnam’s capital city without sitting for a planned lunch and or participating in a signing ceremony.

Trump said he felt he had to “walk” from the negotiating table, in part because Kim wanted the United States to lift economic sanctions on North Korea in their entirety.

“It was about the sanctions,” the president said. “Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that. They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that.”

For Trump, the surprising turn of events amounted to a diplomatic failure after he had hoped his second summit with Kim, following their meeting last summer in Singapore, would produce demonstrable progress toward North Korea’s denuclearization.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “I wish we could have gotten a little bit further,” but added that he was optimistic about the progress that was been made simply by meeting.

Sitting beside Kim on Thursday morning, Trump said the pair had enjoyed very good discussions over dinner the night before, with “a lot of great ideas being thrown about,” adding that “importantly, I think the relationship is, you know, just very strong. And when you have a good relationship, a lot of good things happen.”

Asked if he was confident the pair would reach a deal, Kim was equally guarded. “It’s too early to tell. I won’t prejudge,” Kim said in reply to the question from a Washington Post reporter, a rare response from a North Korean leader to an independent journalist. “From what I feel right now, I do have a feeling that good results will come.”

White House aides have said the president is determined to sell Kim on a vision of modernization and present him with a choice between continued isolation or burgeoning economic growth if he gives up the North’s nuclear weapons program.

Both Kim and Trump also said they would welcome the idea of opening a U.S. liaison office in the North Korean capital. Washington does not have direct diplomatic representation in Pyongyang.

[Washington Post]

Kim Jong Un and Trump’s Tuesday arrivals in Vietnam 

China blocked off roads along train tracks and censored online mentions of the train’s whereabouts. Vietnam repaved roads, decked out its capital with flowers and flags, and literally rolled out the red carpet.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday morning after taking the long route from Pyongyang for his second, closely watched summit with President Trump. He made the 2½-day, 2,800-mile journey through China by his preferred mode of transport: armored train.

Kim’s train arrived early Tuesday in the border town of Dong Dang, where he was greeted with fanfare by Vietnamese authorities. From there, a stretch limousine took him the rest of the way to Hanoi, where he arrived 2½ hours later in a motorcade that included at least a dozen police motorcycles and cars. Onlookers stood behind street barricades and waved North Korean, Vietnamese and American flags.

President Trump arrived on Air Force One later Tuesday. Landing in darkness, he waved as he disembarked Air Force One and was met by senior Vietnamese and U.S. officials. His motorcade passed crowds waving the flags of Vietnam, the United States and North Korea on its way to the JW Marriott Hotel, his accommodation for the two-day summit.

The two leaders are scheduled to dine together Wednesday evening before the summit gets underway on Thursday.

[Los Angeles Times]