Valdai Club

The belligerent statements that the United States, North Korea and South Korea have been making about each other over the past few weeks, and the steps they have taken to mobilise their existing arsenals, suggest that a sharp escalation of tension may occur in the near future.

On April 24-25, a Russian-North Korean summit will be held in Vladivostok. This meeting is long overdue, especially given the fact that Kim Jong-un has had four meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, three with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and two with Donald Trump.

The planned summit in Hanoi should draw public attention in the United States and other countries away from the government shutdown, the unpopular decision to withdraw from Syria, and the scandal over the US-Mexican border fence.

On July 5, 2018, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began his visit to North Korea. According to Washington, at a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un he would seek Pyongyang’s agreement on a denuclearization “road map.”

US President Donald Trump and Chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Un held a summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018, which is, without doubt, a historic event, if only because the two heads of state never met before and relations between Washington and Pyongyang were on the brink of an armed conflict involving the use of nuclear missiles.

The Korean crisis has two components. One is the North Korean nuclear and missile program. Another is the decades-long division of the Korean nation in two separate states. These issues are interrelated, but their influence on each other is ambiguous.

Chung Eui-yong, Head of the National Security Office under the president of South Korea, said, while speaking to reporters in Washington, that president Trump had expressed his agreement to hold a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un until May. According to Valdai Club expert Gleb Ivashentsov, there are many obstacles for the meeting, and we have to wait for what the DPRK will say and how the US will behave before and in course of the negotiations.

Does the appearance of Pyongyang's ability for a nuclear missile strike against Washington change something? In fact, nothing, except that the situation around Korea has entered a new round of tension.The reaction of President Trump to the current launch of Hwasong-15 was rather low-key. Unlike his speech in the United Nations on the complete destruction of the DPRK, he simply said that "we will take care of it".

After the UN Security Council agreed on Monday to ratchet up sanctions against North Korea for its sixth nuclear test, Kim Jong Un has to prove to his nation that he will continue his programme anyway, former Russian ambassador to South Korea Gleb Ivashentsov told valdaiclub.com.

The total losses of the United States and South Korea could reach almost a million troops, including up to 100,000 killed Americans. The total cost of the war with the DPRK was estimated at 100 billion dollars, and the amount of economic damage to South Korea - more than 1 trillion dollars.