North Korea, United States and the Game of Hide and Seek

Hours after the US President Donald Trump declared the cancellation of talks with North Korea, the latter emerged again showing its willingness to meet the US President. For last few days, the world fraternity is witnessing this game of hide and seek between the US and North Korea, where both are coming out with specific demands and threatening to call off the summit. Officials on either side are still on the state of dilemma over the situation of the two unpredictable leaders. If everything goes well, the historic summit of the two rivals is going to take place on 12th June at Singapore.

North Korean Chief Kim Jong-un himself said, “We would like to make known to the US side once again that we have the intent to sit with the US side to solve problems regardless of ways at any time.” Kim also said that President Trump's decision to call off the summit is not in line with his thought for peace and stability he wants to see in the world and in particular the Korean Peninsula.

US President Donald Trump had canceled the summit on Thursday by writing a personal letter addressing Kim Jong-un, where he wrote amidst hostile comments from North Korea and growing misunderstanding, it is better to cancel the summit. As North Korea went against its promise of giving up its nuclear weapons before the summit declaring it is not going to dismantle its nuclear program.

This was followed by series of comments and counter comments from the US and North Korea involving top leaders and officials. The last episode in this series was North Korean foreign office statement saying US Vice President Mike Pence a political dummy after he remarked that if the situation goes on like this, North Korea is going to face the same fate as Libya soon. Followed by a threat of Nuclear Showdown to the United States by North Korea.

In spite of all these, hours before US President canceled the summit, as promised, North Korea organized the ceremonial dismantling of its nuclear test site, after the systemic dismantling before the foreign media, North Korea said, “this is an example of our commitment to building a nuclear free peaceful world”.

Though Donald Trump's cancellation came as a surprise for everyone, at the same time Trump has kept the option of talks open saying, “If you ever change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write”.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has played a very important role in bringing the two allies US and North Korea, called an emergency meeting after the declaration by the US President. His Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha spoke to the US Minister of State Mike Pompeo to settle the issue and came to conclusion as the released statement by South Korea says, “devote effort to save the dialogue opportunity”.

In the past also, the two countries were engaged in a war of words, as US President Donald Trump used to call Kim, “little rocket man” and a “sick puppy”, while Kim referred to US President as a “dotard”. But in last few days the relationship between the two countries have improved and a drastic change in the form of the language of respect has been observed. Hope the language of respect continues and both the leaders sit and talk.