March 1, 2019
Jeffrey Lewis
The following is an excerpt from the Washington Post.
President Trump and Kim Jong Un Source: vn.usembassy.gov
Trump and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho both gave news conferences after the talks broke down. While they characterized the cause of the collapse in different terms, the basic outlines are clear enough. Everyone seems to agree that North Korea offered to close its nuclear facilities at a place called Yongbyon. Yongbyon is not North Korea’s only source of fissile material for nuclear weapons, but it is an important site. In exchange, North Korea demanded what it described as “partial” relief from sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. Trump objected, insisting that Kim would have to close other sites involved in the production of nuclear weapons before any sanctions could be lifted.
This outcome comes as a surprise. North Korean officials have been clear for months that they were willing to close Yongbyon in exchange for “corresponding measures” and — working with China and Russia — North Korea has been making it clear that those corresponding measures included sanctions relief. For months, it has been clear that North Korea was offering to close the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and only those facilities. Other facilities, including a uranium enrichment plant near Kangson that my colleagues and I helped identify, were never on the table.
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