The US and North Korea still lack common ground for further talks on the nuclear issue, said Sun Xingjie, vice president of the School of International and Public Affairs at Jilin University, writing for
China.com.cn.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to North Korea is believed to have concluded without reaching any consensus. Pompeo is believed to have directly cut to the topic of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, and insists on negotiations over technical details, according to Sun. US President Donald Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been criticized as being empty and ineffective inside the US, putting the president under a lot of pressure.
However, Pompeo’s direct approach may have caused a blow to North Korean government, which Sun believes had expected otherwise. North Korea is looking to build a new relationship with the US primarily based on a peace mechanism, in which denuclearization is not the most important part.
North Korea may have objected to any technical negotiations, refusing to draw a specific roadmap, believes Sun. For North Korea, denuclearization is a byproduct of the process of building the Korean Peninsula peace mechanism, while for the US it is a precondition.
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