US to build on Trump's Singapore deal with North Korea

WASHINGTON • US President Joe Biden is looking to build on a denuclearisation agreement that Mr Donald Trump reached with North Korea, a move likely to be welcomed by South Korea, which has seen it as a starting point for disarmament discussions.

Mr Kurt Campbell, Mr Biden's Asia coordinator, made the administration's first on-record comments that it would accede to the agreement struck in 2018 between Mr Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at their summit in Singapore, Yonhap news agency said yesterday.

South Korea President Moon Jae-in, who is set to meet Mr Biden tomorrow at the White House, has been looking for a US commitment to the pact.

"Our policy review took a careful look at everything that has been tried before. Our efforts will build on Singapore and other agreements made by previous administrations," Mr Campbell said in a written interview, referring to the administration's recently completed policy review on North Korea.

The Singapore summit resulted in a bare-bones declaration that included a call for the two sides "to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". But the United States and North Korea never agreed on what they meant by denuclearisation and the accord resulted in no tangible steps for Mr Kim to wind down his arsenal.

Mr Trump had called for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible" elimination of North Korea's atomic arsenal before the country could receive relief from sanctions choking its anaemic economy.

Pyongyang's leaders have seen giving up the weapons as political suicide, and while the nuclear negotiations sputtered, Mr Kim was busy adding to his stockpile of nuclear material and missiles that can deliver warheads to the US and American allies.

Mr Campbell said the Biden administration's policy towards North Korea is not aimed at hostility, and that Washington will work for the denuclearisation of the peninsula. The new policy with North Korea will seek a "calibrated, practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy", he told Yonhap.

Mr Kim earlier this year ratcheted up tensions when he said he would put his country on a path to develop more advanced nuclear technologies and missiles.

South Korea and Japan host the bulk of US troops in Asia, and Mr Biden has been seeking help from the allies in security concerns posed by China and North Korea.

BLOOMBERG