Bridges blown up by Pyongyang can be rebuilt

North Korea delivers on its promise to dismantle its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri. As well as blowing up tunnels, it destroyed outbuildings. Picture: Getty Images

Donald Trump may have cancelled his summit with Kim Jong- un but both leaders have left the door open for bridges to be rebuilt.

The US President’s bombshell decision to cancel the summit was all but forced on him by a series of broken promises, acts of bad faith and threats by Pyongyang.

But Trump was careful to ­ensure that there was little “fire and fury” in his rhetoric towards Kim, leaving it up to the North ­Korean leader to decide if the tenuous rapprochement between the countries is over. Kim’s relatively benign response bodes well for the prospects of a summit taking place at some time.

It was significant that Kim did not choose to embark on a mad Stalinist rant like his Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui did in response to comments made by US Vice-President Mike Pence, after he drew comparisons between the future of North Korea and the fate of Libya. Choe’s attack was a misjudgment that Kim should never have approved and it shows how immature Pyongyang still is on the international stage.

Trump called in his national ­security team and declared enough was enough, dictating his open letter to Kim word-for-word.

But Trump’s careful wording made it clear that he was still open to a leaders’ summit — perhaps in the very near future — if he could be more certain of Kim’s likely ­behaviour at such a meeting.

The collapse of the summit seemed increasingly inevitable after the events of recent days. Pyongyang overplayed its hand and, in doing so, exposed the large gaps in the expectations of the two nations for the mooted June 12 meeting in Singapore.

North Korea started the rot last week when it overreacted to comments by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who spoke of how he saw North Korea following the Libyan model of ­nuclear disarmament.

Bolton was speaking about the fact Muammar Gaddafi traded his nascent nuclear weapons program in 2003 for sanction relief. But Pyongyang interpreted the comments as foreshadowing a similar fate for its supreme leader given Gaddafi ended up being killed by rebels in 2011. Pyongyang threatened to cancel the summit.

The threat caught the Trump administration by surprise, given that Kim had been making very public moves to improve relations and set the scene for the summit. He had halted all nuclear and missile tests, released three US hostages and closed a nuclear test site. But the threat from Pyongyang unnerved the administration and especially the President.

It also coincided with other strange behaviour by Pyongyang. The White House had sent a team to Singapore to discuss logistics with a North Korea team, but the North Koreans didn’t show up. No explanation, nothing.

Then Pyongyang refused to honour an earlier promise to allow international inspectors to ­observe its closure of the nuclear test site. Then, for an entire week before the attack by Choe, the ­administration could not make contact with anyone in the regime.

Last weekend Trump understandably became gravely concerned the summit could backfire. Kim might not even turn up.

He reportedly feared it could deliver him one of the most ­embarrassing moments of his presidency.

Despite Trump’s private concerns, aides say he still hoped the summit would proceed.

At this point the White House appeared to accept it may have overplayed its hand by demanding that Kim agree to immediately give up all his nuclear weapons for nothing in return. The art of the deal is to give something in return and Pyongyang was now demanding to know what that was.

So Washington started to inject some flexibility into its expectations in the hope of keeping the flaky North Koreans on track for the summit.

Trump spoke of the enormous wealth that would flood North Korea if it agreed to denuclearise and sanctions were lifted. He spoke of security guarantees which would ensure the country would not be invaded and that Kim stayed as the country’s ­supreme ruler. And, finally — in the past 48 hours — Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo watered down their demand for immediate denuclearisation, stating the US would accept “credible steps” towards it. In other words, North Korea could pursue the progressive dismantling of its nuclear program as sanctions were lifted and the economy was revived.

But then North Korea blew it by overreacting for the second time in a week, this time to the comments made by Pence. Pyongyang’s decision to issue another crazed public rant to these ­remarks was the straw that broke the back of the White House.

The madness of the rant was rightly too much for Trump to ­ignore only weeks before he was due to fly across the world.

Trump deserves credit for getting Kim even close to a position where the two leaders might one day meet to discuss peace.

The President’s hardline rhetoric and refusal to take a backward step has helped force China to confront its duplicitous dealings with Pyongyang. Trump has forced Beijing — and the UN Security Council — to apply the toughest sanctions ever imposed on the ­hermit kingdom.

This was surely a factor in Kim’s abrupt willingness to talk about peace, denuclearisation and to forge a detente with South Korea. But Trump is correct not to attend a summit until Kim and his regime can behave like grown-ups. Spewing forth comical Stalinist threats of a forthcoming nuclear apocalypse is no way to run a negotiating strategy with the US President.

By cancelling the summit, Trump is telling Kim to grow up and go away until he is ready to do a deal with Washington.

The US has waited almost 70 years for a sane and stable North Korea to emerge and take its place among the community of nations. A bit longer won’t hurt.