Tag: Negotiations

Kim Jong Un’s Long Game

Image courtesy of U.S. Department of State/Flickr. Public Domain

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum CSIS on 11 July 2018.

Welcome to North Korean Negotiations 101. North Korea’s reaction to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to Pyongyang was expected and does not signal the end of the diplomatic process; it just shows us it will be a long and difficult one. On top of dealing with North Korean-style negotiations, President Donald Trump already made important concessions too soon before concrete North Korean denuclearization steps while Kim is playing a long game, looking 40 to 50 years down the road. Trump, on the other hand, seems to be focused on the next 2.5 years, until the next US presidential election in 2020.

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Four Fast Facts on Denuclearization

Image courtesy of U.S. Department of State/Flickr. Public Domain

This article was originally published by the IPI Global Observatory on 14 June 2018.

The Singapore Summit between the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong-un, and US President Donald Trump—preceded by an historic border crossing and sit-downs with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping—is a tremendous moment by any measure. Almost exactly 55 years after the Korean Armistice Agreement, the prospect of a formal end to the Korean War and significantly thawed relations on the Korean Peninsula seems possible. Just a few months ago, North Korea and US were threatening each other with war.

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It’s Not Really About the Nukes – Crisis Negotiation in North Korea

Image courtesy of Dreidprawns/Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0

This article was originally published by Political Violence @ a Glance on 12 April 2018.

The United States may soon have a shot at talking directly to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Given this unique opportunity, what foreign policy tactics should US negotiators use in the effort to denuclearize the Korean peninsula? It may seem strange, but negotiators might consider taking a lesson from the FBI and the field of Crisis Negotiation to show us a better path to de-escalation.

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Cyprus’s Elusive Reunification: So Near to a Solution, Yet so Far

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This article was originally published by the Elcano Royal Institute on 19 January 2017.

Summary

The reunification of Cyprus is one of the world’s longest running and intractable international problems. The latest talks in Geneva in January 2017 between Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek-Cypriot President, and Mustafa Akıncı, his Turkish-Cypriot counterpart, after 20 months of negotiations, made significant progress. The issues of territorial adjustments and security and guarantees are the most sensitive and core issues yet to be resolved and ones that will determine whether a solution can be reached and approved in referendums on both sides.

Analysis

Background

The Mediterranean island has been divided since Turkey’s invasion in 1974 in response to the Greek military junta’s backing of a coup against President Makarios aimed at enosis (union with Greece).1 Cyprus is the only divided country in Europe and its capital, Nicosia, is also split in two.

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The Coming Brexit Tragedy

So we drank the kool-aid...
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This article was published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 3 January 2017.

With both sides ignoring the decline of the liberal world order, the Brexit process is set to result in tragedy for both the UK and EU.

This past year changed everything, except how governments think. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the pre-negotiations for Brexit. With both sides ignoring the far-reaching implications of Donald Trump’s election as US president – namely, the decline of the liberal world order – the process seems set to produce a tragedy for the United Kingdom and the European Union alike.

Judging by the behavior of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s diplomats, one might believe that Brexit is the only real uncertainty nowadays. Indeed, they seem convinced that their only imperative – beyond protecting the unity of the Conservative Party, of course – is to secure as many benefits for the UK as possible.

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