WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd July, 2019) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was the big winner at his media extravaganza meeting with President Donald Trump at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Chas Freeman told Sputnik.
"President Trump got the attention he craves, but the big winner from the spectacle was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose belief that nuclear weapons guarantee that he will be taken seriously by the United States and the world has just been revalidated," Freeman said.
On Sunday, Trump and Kim held at the DMZ their third personal summit meeting and Trump became the first US president ever to set foot in North Korea. The DMZ has� dividing North and South Korea since the 1953 Korean War armistice.
The two leaders agreed to restart negotiations on a long-elusive agreement on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. However, Freeman cautioned that the meeting was much about style than substance.
"President Trump specializes in staging pseudo-events that mirror 'reality tv': That's what this was - stuntsmanship, not statesmanship," Freeman said.
Trump was correct in his efforts to reach out to Kim to revive discussions between the two nations, Freeman acknowledged.
However, if the US president's "approach to denuclearization continues to rely on 'maximum pressure,' their third encounter will not be a turning point any more than their first two," he warned.
The US policy of maintaining maximum pressure on North Korea only served to reinforce Pyongyang's conviction that they needed nuclear weapons to guarantee regime survival, Freeman explained.
"It has not and will not induce compromise," Freemen said, adding that the significance of renewed negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang should not be exaggerated. "As for the resumption of talks, it costs nothing to talk.� But talking is only worthwhile if you have something useful to say."
However, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has useful things to say about Korean unity and the development of the North Korea's economy, Freeman noted.
"If Kim Jong Un is smart, he'll meet with Moon to hear his ideas," he said.
Freeman also expressed reservations as to whether current US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be able to maintain constructive negotiations with Pyongyang.
"It's not clear that Secretary of State Pompeo, whose trademark substitute for diplomacy is the insulting delivery of threats coupled with politically convenient falsehoods, has anything appealing to say to the North Koreans," he said.
Freeman advised not to hold out exaggerated expectations for the revived talks and any other consequences of the DMZ meeting.
"As President Trump says, 'We'll see what happens.' My guess is - not much," Freeman concluded.
The new concept behind the talks, as reported in the US media, would amount to a nuclear freeze that essentially enshrines the status quo and tacitly accepts North Korea as a nuclear power - something US administration officials have often said they would never stand for.
