Politic?

Fool Me Once, Shame on You: Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me

"To secure transparency on the suspension of nuclear tests, we will close the republic's northern nuclear test site."
"[A] great victory [has been attained in the nation's official] 'byungjin' [policy line; pursuing economic and nuclear development in synchronicity]."
"Nuclear development has proceeded scientifically and in due order and the development of the delivery strike means also proceeded scientifically and verified the completion of nuclear weapons."
"We no longer need any nuclear test or test launches of international and intercontinental range ballistic missiles and because of this the northern nuclear test site has finished its mission."Statement, Korean Workers' Party's Central Committee

"There is nothing in North Korea's statement that signals a willingness to give up their nukes."
"On the contrary, the tone of the message is one of confidence and strength."
Benjamin Silberstein, North Korea researcher, University of Pennsylvania

Attendees at the Third Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea Credit: Reuters

There, it's done -- the long-awaited announcement made after a meeting of North Korea's full Central Committee, focusing on its "new stage" of policies and national directions. The committee saw fit to unanimously resolve to concentrate its national efforts to consolidate a strong socialist economy for the purpose of embarking on "groundbreaking improvements in people's lives". So, it is clear after all that the Kin dynasty is not heartlessly oblivious to the plight of its starving people, envisioning a glorious future of strong economic and social growth.

Of course that future could have been achievable in the past, had it laid aside its commitment to its communist-era pledge and aligned itself with its South Korean cousins who have long since achieved pride in self-sufficiency that it created as an Asian Tiger of stellar technological achievement and production reaching into international corridors of trade and becoming wealthy in the process; the South's robust economy a stark contrast to the North's.

The South has demonstrated incalculable patience with its wayward cousin to the North where -- despite being constantly threatened, suffering violence and loss of life at the vicious whims of Jim Jong Un, putting the South to the test -- it now hopes to usher in a new era, convincing Kim there is nothing to fear from its neighbours, much less the United States, and everything to gain.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in claims Kim's expression of interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons is genuine, that they plan to meet to discuss this and other areas of common interest in Panmunjom during a summit to resolve the standoff with Pyongyang. Sadly, North Korea's idea of "denuclearization" fails to accord with the American definition; it is an issue that remains live; nuclear development to resume unless Washington removes its troops from the Korean Peninsula.

Kim Jong Un's view of himself as a supreme leader, one whose prestige and power resides in his ability to bellicosely threaten his perceived enemies teeters on the brink of acceding to the demands of those enemies, and it just simply does not appear to jive with the former commitment into which so much treasury and effort has been poured. Still, there are those who find the newer statements of accommodation believable.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington is certainly one among them, taking comfort that North Korea is signalling it is prepared to freeze its program; a significant first step -- with others equally welcome -- to follow, they would like to believe, despite past such episodes being turned upside down and inside out, as examples of what can go wrong.