Despot and Diplomat

In 2005, when I was chief US negotiator in the six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear programme, I saw instructions for my first meeting, a banquet organised by the Chinese that included a Korean delegation. If there were toasts (not uncommon at Chinese banquets), I should not join. It seems that I was expected to sit down, without touching the glass, staring at it with their hands crucified, waiting for others to lower their glasses. Later, when I first visited North Korea, I was instructed not to smile at my hosts. Looks like I was just supposed to offer angry looks.

Donald Trump clearly modified those instructions. In fact, with his endless assessment of Kim Jong's leadership, his improvised and clumsy greeting to one of Kim's generals and his embrace of what Koreans do (particularly the potential for beach construction), Trump has given up every claim that the US promotes a broader set of values. But while Trump may have gone too far, the idea that the American delegation should sit down with intact glasses during a toast also represents a wrong tone.

In September 1995, during the last month of the Bosnian war, the US delegation for peace talks, headed by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, arrived in Belgrade for talks with Serbia's dictator Slobodan Milosevic. According to Milosevic, he could not force Bosnian Serbs to withdraw heavy weapons and abandon Sarajevo's bloody four-year siege. He urged Holbrooke to meet with Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both later convicted of war crimes. Holbrooke asked where they were. “There in that cottage,” responded to Milosevic. “Tei call?”

Holbrooke gathered us all in a hurry to discuss it. Should we meet? “If so, should I give you a hand?” Thinking of hundreds of thousands of Sarajevo citizens many of whom were killed and those facing hunger as a result of the siege I answered, “Give my hand and close this thing and go home” We did. The siege of Sarajevo was removed the next day.
Whether it helps or not, giving of hand, on the other hand, negotiating by showing someone the fist has resulted in little success. During the Winter Olympics in Pyongchang in South Korea, Zv. President Mike Pence was expected to meet with the Korean delegation. Perhaps to cover his back at home, Pence spoke somewhat harshly before the meeting. The Koreans canceled it, as in saying what meaning would the meeting have?

During my period of six-way talks, I have avoided involvement in criticism of North Korea. I knew that soon every week I would have to meet again, and as a critical show helped me in Washington, there would be no cooperation on the ground, thus risking the end of North Korea's nuclear program. There's a big difference between speaking harshly on television and meeting the Koreans. Direct diplomacy is a serious tool for a serious purpose. Maintaining position from a distance is not part of it.

Sometimes body language is difficult to understand. As the US ambassador to Iraq, the instructions I received from Washington rarely came with some preliminary sense of responsibility for the outcome. I was told that my work included helping the Iraqi opposition remove then Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. American officials at meetings in Washington behaved sharply, like high school athletes in the dressing rooms that played the closets before a big game. But when they came to the field and met Malik, they gave him no reason to believe that they loved evil.
I stayed at such meetings, watching Malik see me, asking why I had previously warned him of lowering the patience of the US government with his autocratic rule and severe consequences. Meanwhile, visitors from Washington took a delicate attitude, the shades of which Malik would understand only by means of some escape device.
Any diplomat should have intentions in a negotiations on behalf of his or her country, which means it should be clear about the final outcome and the best way to achieve it. In Singapore, the issue was the North Korean nuclear programme. Nothing else mattered.

Time will tell if the Koreans have the same effect on Trump as he does on them. Kim gave very little and was likely stunned when, for the first time, an American president took to support North Korea's alleged anxiety about joint US-Core military exercises (that the Koreans can defend). It was a huge drop that was to be taken in reserve in one way or another. More broadly, a framework for peace and security involving all parties directly affected - South Korea, Japan, Russia and China - must be designed.

Similarly, the history of North Korea's human rights, one of the worst, should be treated in the future perhaps, as I signalled in the six-way talks, as a component of ongoing diplomatic relations. For now, however, the North Korean nuclear programme must be at the top of the agenda.
If Trump's approach will work with North Korea it will depend on diplomacy following the Singapore summit. The ball is yours, Secretary of State Mike Pompeii.