breaking the emphasis the breakdown of the second North Korea US summit in
Hanoi in February nuclear officials from the two sides are expected to meet for
the first time later today in Stockholm for preliminary talks which will be
followed by an official working-level talks in Saturday October 5th what can
we expect from this meeting progress and if so do we expect both sides to have
brought new proposals for each other now joining me live via Skype from
Washington DC for some analysis as Scott Snyder senior fellow at Council on
Foreign Relations Scott great to see you again
good to be here now before I head into the talks what we can expect from the
talks and what we expect each side to have brought to the table I want to talk
about North Korea C launched ballistic missiles just a few days ago I mean what
do you make of this does this give North Korea any covin upper hand
I think it's intended to signal that North Korea is coming at the
negotiations from a position of strength it also serves a continuing testing need
for North Korea to try to continue to develop strike and survivability
capability by developing a C launched nuclear option I think that the missile
is far ahead of the development of the vessel that would carry it and so that
mitigates it somewhat but still it's really not good timing and really not a
propitious atmosphere in which to move forward on negotiations
I think it's right to go ahead and have the negotiations but it really is a
negative signal from the US point of view no US president all trouble brushed
off the the missiles that North Korea launched this time around although this
this SLBM or even if it's not an SLBM even if you're shot from a platform it
would target the US as well he brush it off and said that the toxin would go on
as scheduled what does that say about
Donald Trump's position heading into this talks well I think he wants to see
the talks through he has invested a lot in the personal relationship with Kim
jong-un III I'm worried that it might send the wrong signal in terms of Kim
jong-un and the North Koreans believing that President Trump is desperate for
some kind of deal and I don't think that that is actually the case but I do
believe that maybe Special Representative Egon could have a more
flexible position than what the North Koreans heard in NY but it really is
going to be contingent upon what the North Koreans are willing to do know do
we know what kind of a proposal that the u.s. is going into the talks with there
have been some speculations that the u.s. is going with a less of an
all-or-nothing approach may be a temporary or lifting of a certain kind
of sanctions perhaps do we know anything at all there have been reports about the
possibility of connecting limited sectoral sanctions lifting to steps that
North Korea might take on denuclearization but I think that the
underlying issue that has to be addressed in order to get to any kind of
implementation of a phased approach is that both sides have to agree on what
the objective is and for the United States it's very important to know that
the pathway of engagement in a negotiation process thus leads to
complete denuclearization not to incomplete or partial denuclearization
as seems to be the case based on the North Korean position from Hanoi it's
got in your view what could be the best outcome from the Stockholm talks this
tomorrow and a worst-case outcome well it's important for these talks to go
more than just one day or one and a half days you know
one sign of sincerity with regards to engagements in working-level talks will
be a sustained negotiation process and one of the keys to understanding how the
North Koreans are approaching the process is going to be who they bring to
the negotiations so I imagine that once we see the team on the North Korean side
it'll give a further indication of what can be expected in terms of an outcome
from this working-level engagement all right we'll have to wait and see what
comes out of this one-day preliminary talks and the official talks the
following day and we'll see how this leads to the denuclearization equation
in North Korea and the US and and South Korea all right Scott Snyder a senior
fellow at Council on Foreign Relations many thanks to you as always for your
insights today thank you so much