The US appeal at the United Nations for "full enforcement" of sanctions against North Korea underscored the difficulty of attaining real progress on denuclearization, more than a month after the much-vaunted Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un summit.

In their joint declaration after the historic meeting June 12 in Singapore, the North Korean leader "reaffirmed his commitment" to the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

But the actual details of the process, including how and by what timetable the North's nuclear program is to be dismantled, have yet to be negotiated.

At the time, the US administration insisted on the "urgency" of denuclearization, which was supposed to begin "very quickly."

"We're hopeful we can get it done" by 2020, before the end of Trump's current presidential term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the time.

Pompeo has been charged with the challenge of putting meat on the bare bones of the Singapore commitment.

But 40 days and one apparently fruitless visit by Pompeo to Pyongyang later, the tone of the American side has clearly changed.

"We have no time limit," Trump told reporters on Wednesday. "We have no speed limit."

Asked about the change in tone, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert sought to reassure: "We have teams in place that are working very hard on this issue every day," she said. "We have said there's a lot of work left to be done."

- A 15-year process? -

For several experts who had warned that the Singapore summit, for all its hype, pomp and high expectations, had provided only the barest outline of a long and arduous process, the return to reality is welcome.

"To be successful, negotiations need time," said Abraham Denmark of the Wilson Center think tank in Washington. Some experts, he added, "warn that complete and verified denuclearization could take 15 years."

So after the head-spinning events and reversals of the past six months, it may now be time to dig in for a long wait.

To some observers, moreover, the loss of momentum that Singapore should have provided is worrying. There have been few if any real advances.

Even the North's return to the US of the remains of American soldiers killed in the Korean War (1950-53), described as "immediate" on June 12, appears more complicated -- with Pompeo now saying it may take place in "the next couple of weeks."

For now, the only concrete results of the Washington-Pyongyang thaw are the North's halt to nuclear and missile testing and the American side's suspension of planned military maneuvers with South Korea, long denounced as a "provocation" by Pyongyang.

The US had long rejected such a "double freeze." It involves gestures that could be reversed in a moment.

"If our goal still is the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the North Korean nuclear program, we're not succeeding," said Sue Mi Terry of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking to a security conference in Aspen, Colorado.

"Not only are they not giving up their nuclear weapons program," she continued, "they've been working overtime on advancing their program."

The Trump administration, criticized for failing to obtain a written promise of this key objective in Singapore, now insists negotiations are progressing toward the North's "final, fully verified" denuclearization.

- No 'Plan B' -

But a Pompeo visit to North Korea in early July was "by all accounts except his own deeply disappointing," said Jeffrey Bader and Ryan Hass in an article for the Brookings Institution. The problem, say the two experts, is that in Singapore, "Trump gave away much of that leverage" to ensure the North's cooperation.

And now the international campaign of "maximum pressure" on Pyongyang -- the stringent sanctions and the diplomatic isolation that Washington helped orchestrate -- is beginning to weaken.

"The sanctions are already loosening," said Terry, "because China is not really implementing" them.

Hence Pompeo's visit to the UN on Friday to condemn the erosion of the sanctions regime and to demand that the international community maintain serious pressure.

But this could be a challenge, experts say. "Maximum pressure" will be difficult to maintain in the absence of some new North Korean provocation.

"In case it doesn't work, we need to have a plan," Terry said.

"We don't really have a Plan B."

US pushes UN to maintain sanctions pressure on NKorea
United Nations, United States (AFP) July 20, 2018 - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday urged UN member-states to keep tough economic sanctions fully in place on North Korea and maintain pressure on Kim Jong Un to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"We need to see Chairman Kim do what he promised the world he would do," Pompeo told reporters after meeting with the Security Council.

The United States believes that North Korea can shed its "pariah" status from its nuclear and missile programs, but "it will take full enforcement of sanctions for us to get there," he said.

Pompeo traveled to New York for the one-hour meeting with the council to provide a first briefing to the top UN body on North Korea since Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's summit.

China and Russia have argued that North Korea should be rewarded with the prospect of eased sanctions for opening up dialogue with the United States and halting missile tests.

But US Ambassador Nikki Haley made clear that the best way to support US diplomacy on North Korea was "to not loosen the sanctions."

"We can't do one thing until we see North Korea respond to their promise to denuclearize," Haley said.

Pompeo's talks in New York came a day after Russia and China put a six-month hold on a US request to cut off deliveries of refined oil to North Korea.

Last week, the United States asked a UN sanctions committee to order a halt to shipments of oil products to North Korea after accusing Pyongyang of exceeding a cap on fuel deliveries with illegal imports.

But Russia and China said they needed more time to consider the US request and to review Washington's allegations of sanctions-busting by North Korea.

Pompeo called for an end to the illegal ship-to-ship transfers of fuel while Haley rejected the Chinese and Russian appeal for more time, saying the United States had photographs as proof of the violations.

Trump opened up prospects for an end to the standoff with North Korea when he met in Singapore on June 12 with Kim, who agreed to work toward denuclearization of the peninsula.

The agreement however was short on details -- North Korea has long trumpeted a denuclearization goal, but one that it sees as a lengthy process of undefined multilateral disarmament, rather than a unilateral dismantlement of its nuclear arsenal.

And more than a month later, no concrete progress has been reported.

- South Korea raises sanctions exemptions -

South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told the council that it must be ready to grant temporary exemptions to sanctions in specific areas such as communications to help push North Korea toward progress, according to diplomats.

Kang told the council that President Moon Jae-in is expected to visit Pyongyang in the coming months, they said.

On her way into the meeting, Kang said Kim had made a clear commitment to scrap his nuclear and missile programs "and we will hold them up to that commitment."

French Ambassador Francois Delattre said both Pompeo and Kang sought to "confirm the unity and firmness of the Security Council in the full implementation of the sanctions."

Delattre said it was important to avoid "any premature signal of a loosening of sanctions that would be a counter-message."

The council last year adopted three rafts of sanctions targeting North Korea's economy in response to Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test and a series of ballistic missile launches.

Those sanctions banned North Korea's exports of raw commodities while severely restricting supplies of oil -- vital for the country's military.

A UN sanctions resolution adopted last year set ceilings for North Korea of four million barrels of crude oil per year and 500,000 barrels of refined oil products.

The United States last week sent a report to the sanctions committee that said North Korea had secured at least 759,793 barrels of oil products through ship-to-ship transfers at sea.

North Korean tankers reportedly obtain clandestine oil cargo in international waters from ships that often switch off their satellite tracking systems to prevent any monitoring of their activities.

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Trump now says no 'time limit' to denuclearize North Korea
Washington (AFP) July 18, 2018
President Donald Trump said Tuesday there is no hurry to denuclearize North Korea under his accord with Kim Jong Un - a shift in tone from when the US leader said the process would start very soon. "Discussions are ongoing and they're going very, very well," Trump told reporters. "We have no time limit. We have no speed limit." Trump said he discussed North Korea with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday at their summit in Helsinki. "President Putin is going to be involved in the ... read more