President Trump’s negotiators are no longer demanding that North Korea agree to disclose a full accounting of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs as part of talks this week between Trump and dictator Kim Jong Un.
The decision to drop, for now, a significant component of a potential nuclear deal suggests a reality that U.S. intelligence assessments have stressed for months is shaping talks as they progress: North Korea does not intend to fully denuclearize, which is the goal Trump set for his talks with Kim.
Disclosure of a full, verifiable declaration of North Korea’s programs is the issue over which the last round of serious negotiations between Pyongyang and world powers, including the U.S., fell apart a decade ago.
Negotiations between U.S. and North Korean officials in advance of Trump and Kim’s second summit, which began tonight over dinner in Hanoi, have focused heavily on a core component of Pyongyang’s program, the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, officials said.
Dr. Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear scientist who has visited the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center numerous times to assess the country’s capabilities, said dismantling elements of the facility would be the most significant step North Korea could take toward denuclearization.
“Yongbyon is the heart of North Korea’s nuclear program,” Hecker said, explaining that completely dismantling the reactor there would be critical and would mean North Korea would never be able to make plutonium there again.
The Trump administration is hoping to get a significant concession from North Korea on Yongbyon, but it’s unclear if the U.S. can offer something in exchange that Kim would accept.
North Korea wants sanctions relief, and U.S. officials have advised the president against taking such a step at this stage in negotiations.
North Korea has offered to freeze activity at Yongbyon in past rounds of negotiations with previous U.S. administrations.
Current and former U.S. officials note that North Korea has other sites with similar capabilities, however, and they are raising concerns that Pyongyang won’t negotiate on all aspects of its weapons programs if it’s not forced to disclose them.
In recent months researchers have discovered that North Korea has as many as 20 undisclosed ballistic missile sites, according to Beyond Parallel, a project sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a defense think tank.
One of the sites is the Sino-ri Missile Base about 130 miles north of the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea, where about 28,000 U.S. troops are stationed.
North Korea hasn’t launched a missile test since engaging diplomatically with the U.S. last year, but it has continued to otherwise refine and advance its nuclear weapons program in the months since Trump first met with Kim last June in Singapore, U.S. officials have said.
The two men had met in the Vietnamese capital in front of a bank of six flags from each nation, for the first meeting for the pair since their historic summit in Singapore in June.
‘It’s an honor to be with Chairman Kim. It’s an honor to be together,’ said Trump, who repeatedly praised his counterpart.
The admiration may be mutual.
In one remark, Kim praised Trump’s ‘courageous decision’ to open dialogue, according to how his translator recounted it.