Singapore Summit: Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Make History with Agreement
On Tuesday, June 12, 2018, President Donald J. Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un formally signed an historic agreement which commits the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the complete and total denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. After their historic face-to-face meeting, the first ever between a U.S. President and a North Korean Leader, the two held a signing ceremony for an agreement which stipulates that:
1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and the DPRK will join in their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Further, the two parties to the agreement commit to implement the stipulations in the joint agreement fully and expeditiously and to hold follow-on negotiations between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of this summit. Both parties have also committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity and the security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.
Absent from the text of the agreement were any details concerning the means by which verification of the denuclearization will occur, although the President has indicated that such verification will be essential prior to any sanctions, currently in place, being lifted. Also, the President indicated that joint military exercises between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) will be suspended indefinitely, as an effort to show good faith towards the North Korean leadership.
Also missing from the agreement were any references to human rights abuses on the part of North Korea, although the President noted that future discussions will include addressing these concerns when the time is appropriate to do so.
The President also indicated that he will, at some point in the future, invite the North Korean Leader to the White House and that he would also be willing to visit Pyongyang as well.
While there is much remaining to be worked out between the two nations as to how these commitments will be implemented, the fact remains that the agreement signed in Singapore represents an historic and crucial first step in establishing a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, following sixty-five years of ongoing hostilities between North and South Korea. In a Korean War which cost tens of thousands of American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Korean lives, the uneasy cessation of armed hostilities has heretofore left the resolution of that war uncertain. This agreement between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un may well prove to facilitate a formal ending to the Korean War, something never though possible prior to Donald Trump’s presidency.
To those who would continue to disparage the President and call his negotiating skills into question, it might well be asked, “How do you like them apples?”
Pax vobiscum.
-Drew Nickell, 12 June 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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