North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore / Reuters

Trump-Kim summit shows improvements over past deals

By Kim Jae-kyoung

William Brown

Following the historic Singapore summit, many have raised questions about the outcome of the talks.

They say the deal favors North Korea because it has few details on ensuring the path to the complete denuclearization of the reclusive regime.

But for William Brown, adjunct professor at Georgetown School of Foreign Service, the outcome is not all bad.

Although there is some disappointment, he sees a clear improvement in the summit from past agreements.

"There are important improvements over what we have seen before, especially the facts that our provisions, such as halting exercises during positive negotiations, and no release of sanctions until progress is achieved," he said in an interview following the summit.

"Unlike in past agreements, the U.S. has not promised aid and has not even relaxed economic pressure, so the ball is in North Korea's court if it wants success."

He pointed out that in previous deals, the U.S. always offered massive amounts of aid up front and often provided it without advancement.

"I always felt that was a very poor negotiation process on our part.?Moreover, this time Kim signed the deal in front of worldwide TV," he said.

He described the way Washington "experts" keep bringing back the old agreements as templates for the path forward "ridiculous."

"If there should be any consensus, it is that those old practices did not work. We should learn from our mistakes, not try to replicate them," he said.

Trump has not mentioned "maximum pressure" lately but Brown is sure it is still in his back pocket.

"If North Korea does not move down this path, it will achieve nothing but continued economic pressure and at some point, likely a return to maximum pressure," he said.

One more positive thing from the summit, Brown believes, is that both sides have finally ended the "provocation cycle," in which Pyongyang will provoke, then make nice, receive gifts for being nice and then provoke again to earn more rewards.

"In Singapore he really didn't receive gifts and, at least right now, it is hard to conceive of him going back home and firing off more missiles and nuclear tests," he said.

Brown, a former U.S. intelligence officer, sees the Trump-Kim summit as a modest start with a great deal of work to be done.?

The agreement in his words is just "the start of a likely long path," and success will require continued careful coordination of efforts between the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the U.N. Security Council.

He stressed the U.S. and North Korea need to fill in the details quickly and lay out the path ahead in follow-up meetings and negotiations.

From his perspective, one of the first things for North Korea to do to show its sincerity would be to stop production of fissile material.

He explained that since some of these facilities are secret, it is complicated and neither government may be willing to talk about it too much.

"If you are digging a hole and you have decided to fill it up, the first step is to stop digging," he said.

"North Korea should stop making the stuff. This would be a breakthrough. If facility destruction were part of it, I'd say some sanctions relief might be warranted."

He agreed with the White House that sanctions should not be eased until the North takes tangible actions toward denuclearization but a few exceptions might be made, so that sanctions are used as positive levers.

"But these (sanctions relief) must be honed to encourage liberalization of the economy, not preservation of the socialist state," he said.

"Only then can North Korea become a normal place, able to be gradually integrated with the South and into the world economy."