Former Obama official says it is ‘impossible’ for Trump be ready for North Korea meeting by May - Independent

9/3/2018

Former Obama official says it is ‘impossible’ for Trump be ready for North Korea meeting by May

The official says 'perhaps Mr Trump wants a [public relations] opportunity, perhaps because he's desperate to do a deal'

Mythili Sampathkumar New York @MythiliSk

A pedestrian walks in front of a huge screen flashing a news report relating to US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong in Tokyo on 9 March 2018. TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images

A national security official under former President Barack Obama said it is “impossible” for President Donald Trump to be ready by May to have a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Samantha Vinograd, former senior adviser for the National Security Council, said: "There is no way that President Trump can be ready, by May, to have a high stakes negotiation on denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula, it's just impossible”.

The reclusive and mercurial Mr Kim had extended an invitation to meet, which Mr Trump accepted in a reversal of the publicly tense relations between the two.

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The proposed meeting in May would not the first time Pyongyang has participated in negotiations. China hosted a series of talks involving South Korea, Russia, Japan, and the US in early 2000s.

During the Winter Olympics, Mr Kim's sister Kim Yo-Jong became the first member of the family to set foot in South Korea and meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

And, though Ms Vinograd said on CNN that this situation may be different, "that doesn't mean we should rush into a nuclear summit”.

She said Mr Trump’s lack of political and diplomatic experience does not bode well for the administration rushing into a meeting like this.

"Perhaps because he wants a [public relations] opportunity, perhaps because he's desperate to do a deal,” Ms Vinograd posited about why Mr Trump would accept the invitation and set a target date so soon.

Mr Trump has repeatedly criticised previous administrations and Mr Obama’s “strategic patience” in foreign relations, particularly in his dealings with Mr Kim’s continued development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme despite United Nations sanctions.

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Ms Vinograd worried: “You can't wing it. [Mr Kim] is going to be fully prepared. I think that he's playing to the president's ego and the president's weaknesses by flattering him”.

The announcement also came as a surprise to Mr Trump’s own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who just hours before the announcement said that the US was a “long ways from negotiations”.

But, Mr Tillerson said the President made the decision to accept the invite “himself,” a move he said was a “dramatic” reversal in posture for North Korea.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Mr Trump “is getting exactly what he wants” with Mr Kim, having relayed to South Korea that Pyongyang had expressed a “commitment” to ending its nuclear programme, while also suggesting Mr Kim would suspend any nuclear or missile tests during any direct talks.

Vice President Mike Pence made it clear though that the US made “zero concessions” in order to get the invitation, which was a result of the US delegation’s trip to the Winter Olympics last month.

Though Republicans in Congress also praised the diplomatic tactics of the US for getting the invitation and cited it as proof that sanctions against Pyongyang were working, not everyone was optimistic about the meeting.

Democratic Senator Ed Markey said Mr Trump should treat it “as the beginning of a long diplomatic process” and his usual “unscripted” remarks and inflammatory tweets that could derail it.

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The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said the Republican president would need help from others in the US government when discussing such a complex issue face-to-face with Mr Kim.

“It will require the President to rely on the expertise within the State Department, the Intelligence Community, and throughout the government, and not simply on his own estimation of his skills as a ‘˜deal maker’.” Mr Schiff said.