After their rapprochement last year, the US and North Korea, according to media reports, are considering setting up a liaison office in the other country. The US government may send a few liaison officers to North Korea to set up an office there, the CNN reported, citing high-ranking diplomats yesterday. It would be a first step in normalizing relations. The talks about it are still provisional.
The background to the deliberations is the agreement between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their historic summit meeting in Singapore last June. Both sides agreed to create new bilateral relations. Kim and Trump want to meet again in Hanoi in the middle of next week.
Lack of progress in conversations
Kim had also agreed to a „complete denuclearization.“ But there have been no concrete commitments until when the communist-ruled country disarms its nuclear arsenal and what the consideration Washington might look like.
Given the lack of progress in the talks since the summit, North Korea expects a „significant gesture from the US,“ the CNN diplomats were quoted as saying. A first measure could be the exchange of liaison officers. The idea is not new. There had been similar negotiations as a result of the 1994 Framework Agreement between the two sides, in which North Korea was committed to freezing its nuclear program. One year later, however, North Korea canceled the plans because of new tensions.
