U.S. President, Donald Trump has
agreed to meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
Trump has agreed to meet Kim Jong
Un by May in response to an invitation from the North Korean leader, a
potentially dramatic breakthrough in the nuclear standoff with Pyongyang.
Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo
Abe told reporters after a phone call with Trump that Japan and the U.S. would
continue to be “together 100 per cent” and that he’d meet Trump in Washington
in April.
In spite of Japan’s security
alliance with the U.S., concerns have simmered that Trump may cut a deal to
protect its cities from nuclear attack while leaving Japan vulnerable. Two
missile tests in 2017 flew over Japan, and Japan is often targeted by North
Korea’s bellicose rhetoric and threats.
Trump said on Twitter that, “Kim
Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives,
not just a freeze.”
Worries persist, however, that
the outcome of the talks will fall short of Japan’s insistence the North Korea
totally abandons its nuclear and missile development. Tokyo had wanted a
commitment on that by Pyongyang to be a precondition for talks.
Takahashi Kawakami, a professor
at Tokyo’s Takushoku University, said three possible scenarios lay ahead: that
Pyongyang agrees to denuclearize, that it agrees on a nuclear freeze, or that
it goes back to missile launches.
“Of those I see the second as the
most likely, with Japan’s calls for continued pressure sidelined,” Kawakami
said. A freeze would worry Japan as it would “lock in North Korea’s limited
nuclear capacity and its existing capacity to hit Japan and South Korean
targets while the U.S. is out of range,” said Brad Glosserman, a visiting
professor at Tama University. “It would legitimise Kim Jung Un in ways that
Japan doesn’t want to see.”
A Japanese ruling party lawmaker
said Washington was unlikely to agree to a freeze but that North Korea could
gain time to complete its nuclear arms program and thus bolster its bargaining
power.
“Time is in North Korea’s
favour,” said the lawmaker, who asked not to be identified because of the
sensitivity of the topic.
The lawmaker said if the North
achieves its goal of developing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear
warhead to the U. S., Japan would have to bolster its deterrence, including by
asking Washington to deploy nuclear submarines in its vicinity. Not everyone
was pessimistic about Japan being left out.
“The big thing is what is the
goal, and that’ll be discussed by South Korea, Japan and the United States,”
said Katsuhiko Nakamura, executive director at think tank Asian Forum Japan.
Abe has forged close personal ties with Trump, a former real estate billionaire
who is proud of his prowess as a deal-maker.
“No other incumbent U.S.
president has met a North Korean leader. Trump’s diplomatic inexperience and a
dearth of veterans on his team who have dealt with Pyongyang is also troubling.
“There are not people in the
White House who are experienced in negotiations with North Korea, so I have a
little bit of apprehension about the process,” said a former Japanese diplomat.
“One meeting is OK but if a second meeting takes place without results that
will be a big mistake.”
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