美 '리비아모델 아닌 北맞춤형 트럼프모델' - 고명현 박사 대담
To try and make sense of this situation, I'm joined by Dr. Go Myong-hyun , a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Dr. Go, thank you for your time today.
Thanks for having me.
1 - As we just saw in that previous report, when asked about the comments made by North Korea, President Trump said 'We will see what happens'. He also said afterwards that there has been no contact with Pyongyang over it. What should we make of this? Is Pyongyang just bluffing through its state media?
2 - The North Korean vice foreign minister Kim Kye-gwan railed against the notion that the U.S. is looking to pursue the so-called 'Libya model' for denuclearization. Simply put, that calls for all weapons of mass destruction, such as nukes, chemical and biological weapons, to be put on the table before any incentives or compensation. The White House has since said there is no 'Libya model', only the 'Trump model'. The question is, what is the Trump model? Isn't it just the same thing as the Libya model?
3 - In response to North Korea's comments on Wednesday, Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton doubled-down on his calls for CVID, complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization. Seeing as Pyongyang has objected against this already, don't these kind of comments further antagonize Pyongyang and risk derailing the summit?
4 - The North Korean vice foreign minister also said that the U.S. demands are a sinister plot to topple the regime like in Libya and Iraq. It perhaps reveals one of Pyongyang's biggest fears, regime collapse. The U.S. has recently commented on possibly economic incentives, but has so far said very little on assuring regime survival. Could Pyongyang be angling for more assurances on that front?
5 - As I mentioned, the official whose comments the North Korean state media carried was Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang's vice foreign minister. Who is he, and is it significant at all that it was Kim who made the statements?
6 - Alongside this dispute between North Korea and the U.S., South Korea also had its high-level talks with North Korea called off at the last minute. Seoul will be considering how to handle this situation, but isn't this now the time to use the hotline between President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un that has been ready for several weeks now?
7 - Seoul has said it will continue efforts to try and hold high-level talks with Pyongyang, but the question is when will it likely happen? For North Korea, surely there's no rush? Could it take a while?
8 - South Korea will have its own summit with the U.S. next week. When Presidents Trump and Moon meet, of course North Korea will likely be the one of the main topics of discussion. What do you hope comes out of that meeting?
