On February 27, the Valdai Discussion Club hosted an expert discussion on the Donald Trump-Kim Jong-un summit in Hanoi.
More than eight months have passed since the first historical meeting between the US and DPRK leaders in Singapore. Over this time the DPRK has ceased nuclear tests, refused to launch missiles, and destroyed the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri. Nevertheless, the US and UN sanctions regime has been maintained, and the United States does not intend to soften its main lever in negotiations with the DPRK.
Have the leaders of the two countries managed to move from general issues to more specific solutions with certain concessions? Is the Trump administration ready to deal with the DPRK nuclear issue solution or is this only a political campaign to raise Trump’s rating in Congress after unpopular decisions to withdraw troops from Syria and to build a wall on the border with Mexico? Participants in the expert discussion will address these and other issues.
Speakers:
Igor Sagitov, Deputy Director of the First Asian Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;
Konstantin Asmolov, Leading Research Fellow at the Korean Studies Center, RAS Institute for Far Eastern Studies;
Andrei Lankov, professor at the Seoul-based Kookmin University (via video link from the Republic of Korea);
Georgy Toloraya, Executive Director, Russian National Committee on BRICS Research, Director, Asian Strategy Center, Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Science (via video link from Vietnam).
Moderator:
Ivan Timofeev, Programme director of the Valdai Discussion Club.
Working languages: Russian, English