North Korea reinstates staff to liaison office after Trump reverse

North Korea has returned its staff to its liaison office in South Korea, in what appears to be a conciliatory move by Pyongyang.

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un open talks in Hanoi last month. Picture: AFP

North Korea has returned its staff to its liaison office in South Korea, in what appears to be a conciliatory move by Pyongyang.

North Korea withdrew its staff from the office late last week after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced sanctions against two Chinese shipping companies for trading with Pyongyang.

But after days of confusion over a tweet by Donald Trump which appeared to rescind the sanctions, it was confirmed yesterday some North Korean staff members had returned to work at the South-North Joint Liaison Office. The office, in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, was opened last September as the two Koreas knitted closer ties, but Pyongyang pulled its staff out last week without explanation.

“Some of the North Korean staff members are working at the South-North Joint Liaison Office starting from today,” the South Korean Unification Ministry said.

The move follows a surprise tweet by Mr Trump on Friday that appeared to overturn the US Treasury sanctions on the Chinese companies. He was ordering a stop to “additional large-scale” sanctions on “North Korea” that he said had been unveiled earlier in the day. Asked about the tweet, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: “President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary”.

The tweet appeared to directly contradict National Security Adviser John Bolton who had urged other nations to ensure they weren’t involved in North Korean sanctions evasion.

But sections of the US media were later briefed by senior officials that Mr Trump’s tweet referred to plans by the US to roll out a major new round of sanctions against North Korea which now appear to have been dropped as a result of the President’s views.

Mr Trump’s move to head off much more serious sanctions against North Korea, which had not yet been announced, may well have played a role in Pyongyang’s change of heart over the ­liaison centre.

Mr Trump’s actions have raised questions about his administration’s approach to North Korea in the wake of the breakdown of talks in Hanoi last month at the second summit between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un.

Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of NSW’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Australian Defence Force Academy, told The Australian yesterday the tweet undercut Mr Mnuchin and Mr Bolton who were following bureau­cratic routine.

“Trump’s tweet caused immediate confusion on multiple fronts,” Professor Thayer said.

“There was media speculation based on official sources that Trump was responding to new large-scale sanctions that were planned but not yet announced. Was President Trump watering down his administration’s hardline approach to sanctions?”

Professor Thayer said the combination of events — the Treasury sanctions, North Korea’s abrupt withdrawal from the liaison office, and Mr Trump’s tweet rescinding the new sanctions — “demonstrate how Trump’s highly personal transactional foreign policy clashes with bureaucratic routine”.

Professor Thayer said the US sanctions on the two Chinese shipping companies was a “calculated and limited bureaucratic response” that sent a message to China and North Korea that sanctions would remain in place until Pyongyang took meaningful steps to denuclearise the Korean peninsula”.

But the message from officials that Trump was not referring to the sanctions against the two Chinese ships has left observers wondering what the true position is.

In contrast, Professor Thayer said, North Korea had adopted a more “calculated diplomatic action” designed to send a message to South Korea and the US.

Even before the sanctions were announced, the North had questioned the utility of negotiations with the US and hinted Kim would soon resume missile and nuclear tests suspended since late 2017.