North Korea to reopen tourist region as opening gambit for fresh US nuclear talks
The United States has promised to lift some “low-level” sanctions imposed on North Korea when the two nations’ negotiators meet in Stockholm for the first time since talks broke down, with a resumption of tours to the North’s Mount Kumgang resort area one possible concession.
Diplomatic sources said Washington will use Saturday's talks to propose reopening the land border through the Demilitarised Zone that divides South and North Korea to permit tourists to travel to Mount Kumgang, The Korea Times reported.
The resort was first opened in 1998 as part of efforts to build trust and promote exchanges between the two countries.
Around 1 million South Koreans visited the 204-square-mile resort region, an important source of hard currency for the regime, until a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who had inadvertently entered a restricted zone in July 2008.
North Korea has repeatedly called for the resort region to be reopened to foreign visitors, although sanctions imposed by the United Nations in response to repeated ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests have meant the border has remained closed.
“The US permitting the resort to reopen could be used to start the ball rolling in discussions”, said Robert Dujarric, a professor of international relations at the Tokyo campus of Temple University.
“It would not be controversial because it does not involve weapons, the transfer of technology or imports or exports that might contravene other sanctions”, he told The Telegraph. “It’s essentially a harmless gesture that is primarily an issue between the two Koreas, which makes it easier than anything else to do”.
Reopening the resort would also prove popular with Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, who has also been calling for a resumption of visits in order to improve bilateral relations.
US media outlet Vox reported on Wednesday that Washington will offer to suspend some sanctions on the North for 36 months in return for the decommissioning of the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
The online media also said that the US would cancel a joint military exercise with South Korea and that President Donald Trump would sign a declaration to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War, which only ended in an armistice.
US officials have dismissed the report.
The discussions in Stockholm may only be working level talks from which both sides will report back to their respective leaders, but it is clear that significant concessions will have to be made if Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un are to have another summit.
Their last meeting took place in Hanoi over two days in February but ended abruptly and without any agreement when the US delegation left. Mr Trump later said he ended the summit because North Korea demanded that all sanctions be lifted. Pyongyang’s representative later denied that claim and said it only requested the partial lifting of five UN sanctions.
With one eye on next year’s presidential election and keen to secure diplomatic breakthrough, some analysts believe Mr Trump may be willing to be more flexible on the previous policy of the “complete, verifiable and irreversible” elimination of the North’s nuclear capabilities.
“Mr Trump wants to say that he has reached a deal with the North, to claim that he has succeeded where all other presidents have failed and to say that he is better than all his predecessors”, Mr Dujarric said. “This president seems to have no red lines that he is not willing to sacrifice”.
