US wants Kim to commit to denuclearisation timetable
The White House wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to commit to a timetable to surrender his country's nuclear arsenal when he meets President Donald Trump on Tuesday in Singapore, a high-stakes summit that could last as long as two days - or just minutes.
Trump has been advised not to offer Kim, who is Chairman of the State Affairs Commission, any concessions, as the White House seeks to put the onus on the North Koreans to make the summit a success, one US official told Bloomberg.
The president is determined to walk out of the meeting if it does not go well, two officials said.
Alternatively, Trump is toying with the idea of offering Kim a follow-up summit at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, if the two men hit it off.
Other than announcing that the two leaders will first meet at 9:00am Singapore time on Tuesday at the Capella hotel on Sentosa Island, the White House has described no schedule for the summit. If the first meeting goes well, there will be further events that day, and perhaps even the next day.
"There could be more than one meeting, more than one conversation" between the leaders, presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway told reporters yesterday, adding that a nuclear deal may take "two, three, four, five" meetings.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has travelled to Pyongyang twice since March, has prepared President Trump for the summit in about eight to 10 hours of briefings per week for several weeks, two US officials said. Defence Secretary James Mattis has said North Korea will win relief from crippling US economic sanctions "only when it demonstrates verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearisation".
Just weeks after John Bolton's hardline rhetoric infuriated North Korea and nearly derailed the planned summit, the US national security adviser appears to have taken a back seat to Pompeo for the historic meeting.
Bolton went on television on May 13, just days after Pompeo returned from a second visit to Pyongyang, and pressed North Korea to follow the "Libya model" in nuclear negotiations.
Libya unilaterally surrendered its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, but its leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011 by US-backed rebels.
Bolton's demand angered North Korea, which threatened to pull out of the summit. Trump, who according to one US official was furious that Bolton had made the Libya comparison, sought to salvage the meeting by disavowing his remarks.
North Korea has publicly bristled at US officials' insistence that it must agree to disarm before receiving anything in return, instead calling for a step-by-step approach to denuclearisation. The US side has indicated some flexibility on this sticking point, although it is still unclear what a path to denuclearisation would look like.
Joseph Yun, former US special representative for North Korea policy, said Kim could offer a declaration that he will eventually denuclearise when he no longer needs nuclear weapons for deterrence.
Speaking at a US congressional hearing on Tuesday, Yun and Victor Cha, former Asia director on the White House National Security Council, said the summit cannot reasonably be considered a success unless North Korea agrees to make a full, detailed declaration of all its nuclear sites and fissile material.
Cha said international inspectors would then have to be allowed in to check the sites and stores before the US could begin to contemplate rewarding the North Koreans with concessions.
Meanwhile, Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said North Korean leader begged "on his hands and knees" for a summit with the US president, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
"They... said they were going to go to nuclear war with us, they were going to defeat us in a nuclear war," Giuliani told a Tel Aviv investment conference, according to the newspaper. "We said we're not going to have a summit under those circumstances."
"Well, Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in," Giuliani said.