Pyongyang wants to know if US President Donald Trump is “crazy”, according to a senior US academic who has held secret back channel talks with North Korean officials four times over the past year.

“They want to know if he’s crazy…or if this is just an act,” Suzanne DiMaggio, a director at the New America think tank told Politico in an interview.

In meetings spanning Geneva, Pyongyang, Oslo and Moscow, North Koreans have focused on the president’s “erratic behaviour,” she said. “They really want to know what his end game is.”

They have raised Mr Trump’s domestic troubles, including the investigation into possible campaign collusion with Russia and its potential threat to his presidency, and questioned Mr Trump’s undercutting of his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, asking if it is a game of “good cop, bad cop”.

For years Ms DiMaggio, who specialises in talking with rogue regimes, and Joel Wit, a former US diplomat who founded the influential North Korea-monitoring website 38North, have been quietly meeting the North Koreans to talk about their nuclear programme.

In the past, they have declined to speak publicly about the so-called “Track 2” talks, which have kept a line open to the rogue regime even during times of official diplomatic isolation.

They appear to have broken their silence amid growing alarm about name-calling and military escalation between the US and North Korea in the Trump era.

The interview with Ms DiMaggio follows a new war of words after Mr Trump rose to the bait and called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “short and fat” in response to the young dictator’s regime calling him a “lunatic old man.”

Analysts believe the low-brow insults undermined Mr Trump’s earlier statesmanlike approach during a tour of Asia, when he indicated the door could be open to talks.

Ms DiMaggio later summed up the interview through her own Twitter account. “The US needs to pursue/exhaust every diplomatic option available to avert the possibility of a nuclear war with a regime that believes it’s in survival mode,” she said.

Bron: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...-us-negotiator/
Website: www.telegraph.co.uk
Geraadpleegd: 14/11/2017 14:19

Eigen Mening: Ik vraag mij af of er op dit moment een nog meer iconisch en controversieel duo bestaat in de politiek. Donald Trump en Kim Jong-un zijn al in conflict met elkaar sinds het begin van Trump's campagne. Beiden zijn het twee grote leiders en beiden staan ze vooral bekend om hun beruchte uitspraken. Ik ben absoluut geen fan van wat Trump tot nu toe al heeft veroorzaakt en gedaan. Zeker als we ons op zijn beruchte tweets richten kunnen we besluiten dat het misschien niet de meest politiek formele persoon is. Ik wil hiermee niet zeggen dat ik aan de kant van Kim Jong-un sta, alles behalve zelfs. Als ik naar deze twee mensen kijk, dan zie ik geen grote leiders, maar eerder twee kinderen die niet overweg komen. Zeg wat u wil over wat deze personen al hebben bereikt in hun leven en welke machtspositie ze hebben, ik kan deze situatie helaas niet heel serieus nemen.