President Donald Trump first tried to take political advantage of this relationship, that is he displayed a diplomatic gesture, then portrayed his talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a victory before the world countries and claimed that he has been able to minimize one of the major threats in East Asia. Of course, in his talks with the North Korean leader, Trump had given some promises to the North Korean leader and in response, some steps were taken on the part of Pyongyang. North Korea stopped its missile tests and destroyed some facilities in the hope that the sanctions against his country would be reduced. In the second phase, which is a matter of discussions these days, it has been agreed that the United States end its joint exercises with Japan and South Korea and bring its nuclear presence in South Korea to an end, that is strategic weapons from other parts of the world would not be transferred to the Korean Peninsula and stocked there.

These were the goals the leaders of Washington and Pyongyang had put on the agenda following the Singapore talks. But over the past year, it was North Korea which fulfilled some of its commitments; the United States in return only reduced its war games in South Korea but took no action to ease the sanctions against Pyongyang, saying it would take action after denuclearization of North Korea.

This is while North Korea is not willing to take any action in this regard without getting significant concessions, most notably the disarmament of South Korea of US made tactical nukes.

Another point to be made here relates to the regional moves: Both South Korea and Japan have been trying to improve their relations with North Korea. In particular, South Korea has welcomed the current relationship and détente with its northern neighbour and there have been exchanges of visits by the top officials of the two countries. Therefore, there have been openings in Seoul-Pyongyang relations.

Meantime, the American pressures on China, on the one hand, and on Russia, on the other hand, at the international level, or in other words, the trade war against Beijing or the sanctions against Moscow, have made the two countries more reluctant towards resolving the Korean Peninsula problem, particularly if it is supposed to end in Washington’s favour.

Therefore, the United States has so far failed in persuading North Korea on denuclearization, and the issue is not even followed by South Korean officials so seriously.

Because from Seoul’s final perspective, the unity of the two Koreas is the target even if it occurs by creating a Confederation. Thus, it can be said that the two Koreas are willing to move towards forging unity by preserving the existing systems.

In fact, the South Korean nationalists might be interested to see a united Korea taking shape armed with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The analysis that the views of the South Korean President are fully in line with the outlooks of his American counterpart is incorrect.

From forging ties with Pyongyang, South Korea is pursuing its own special relations, but the United States seeks to portray talks with North Korea as a successful policy to the world and benefit from the same approach against Iran and other countries.

For this reason, there is already a type of stagnation in the Pyongyang-Washington talks and North Korea’s denuclearization. Therefore, it can be said that the success that Trump thought had achieved has now become an incomplete and almost ineffective gain. Unless the two parties put new talks on the agenda or the United States takes some practical measures to encourage North Korea to denuclearize. As a result, the question of whether the future of North Korean-US relations, as well as the talks between them, ends in these issues, especially Washington’s economic activity.

Because the sanctions have made life so hard for the people of North Korea, and its dealings with the countries of the world have been very difficult following the US pressures and Security Council resolutions. So Pyongyang seeks to reduce the sanctions so that it can take a breath.