The best word to describe the past few days is nostalgic. North Korea backed out of talks with South Korea that were scheduled for this past Tuesday, it’s not going to resume talks with South Korea unless something is done about the joint military exercises currently going on, and it’s suggesting that it might pull out of the summit in Singapore scheduled next month. Obviously North Korea wants some concessions, something that isn’t unreasonable and makes sense because for the past couple of weeks it appeared to be agreeing to everything the US and South Korea wanted. What is interesting though is that one of the things they said a while ago is that they understood that the military exercises would be continued and appeared to be fine with it then. But now it isn’t, and it totally makes sense. Also on another note is the blunder that US National Security Adviser John Bolton made comparing denuclearizing North Korea to Libya, which in 2003 had agreed to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction only to have Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to be removed from power and killed. This has the potential to ruin the chances of the Singapore summit happening if the US and South Korea don’t reassure North Korea that that won’t happen and/or ease back military exercises for the time being. All of this shouldn’t come as a surprise to the international community given the history of diplomacy with North Korea, but the ball is in the US’s and South Korea’s court to do something about it.
