J
UST months ago, United States President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un traded insults like schoolyard adversaries over the latter’s nuclear tests and missile launches. The world was on edge, wondering if a showdown was imminent given the temperaments—and capabilities—of the two leaders.
But now North Korea has announced it would suspend nuclear tests and even shut down a major site. The president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, also said Kim had embraced denuclearizing without demanding the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula. Moon and Kim will meet next week at the Demilitarized Zone.
Mr. Trump is elated. He was quick to take to Twitter, where he said: “This is very good news for North Korea and the World—big progress! Look forward to our Summit.” His own meeting with Kim has been set for May.
The tide began to turn sometime during the Winter Olympics held in South Korea, when North Korean athletes, accompanied by no less than Kim’s sister, traveled across the border to participate. The two nations spoke and South Korean officials relayed the message to the US. Soon, CIA director Mike Pompeo went to Korea to lay the groundwork for the talks.
It’s a promising development, indeed—“meaningful progress,” if we are to use Moon’s words.
Nonetheless, Japan—over whose territory the missiles passed during testing—through its defense minister said it was not satisfied with North Korea’s promise because it did not mention the abandonment of its short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Kim himself also said they were abandoning the testing because they had already achieved their goal of developing a functional nuclear arsenal—whether this is a bluff, a face-saving statement, or the truth, nobody can say.
The rest of the world should view this turn of events with cautious optimism and a healthy dose of skepticism. Warming relations between the two Koreas and between North Korea and the US, will certainly make people feel safe. But Moon, hoping for an end to the war between the Koreas, himself acknowledged that “the devil is in the details.”
Achieving peace and stability in the region will take more than a statement from one party and a gleeful reaction by the other. There will be a lot to talk about—North Korea’s complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization, for instance, or the security guarantees it wants.
The parties must tread carefully, because it will only take a flash of temper or a thoughtless provocative comment to throw out all these promising initiatives and bring the world back to the edge all over again.