April 7, 2026
SEOUL – The Lee Jae Myung administration’s vision of a “new era of peaceful coexistence and shared growth” on the Korean Peninsula faces formidable challenges. President Lee’s overtures for reconciliation have so far met with a frosty and suspicious response from North Korea. Meanwhile, the deepening quagmire in the Middle East has dashed whatever limited hope remained for a diplomatic breakthrough stemming from US President Donald Trump’s much-publicized “bromance” with Kim Jong-un.
The US-Israel conflict with Iran is likely reinforcing Kim’s belief that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantee of regime survival. Addressing the Supreme People’s Assembly last month, Kim pledged to irreversibly cement his country’s status as a nuclear power while reiterating a hardline stance toward South Korea. He accused the United States of “state terrorism and aggression,” yet notably refrained from mentioning Trump by name.
Kim’s calculated avoidance of personal criticism of Trump appears to leave open the possibility of renewed summit diplomacy. However, while Kim may now be in a stronger position to engage on his own terms, Trump’s erratic handling of the Iran conflict has heightened concerns among those who once saw another Trump-Kim summit as the most viable path toward breaking the long-standing impasse in inter-Korean relations.
It remains uncertain whether the two leaders will meet when Trump visits Beijing in mid-May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. As hostilities in the Middle East continue to escalate, threatening global stability and economic security, Trump appears increasingly constrained by the consequences of his own actions. Kim, for his part, may prefer to wait, allowing tensions to further enhance his strategic leverage before re-engaging.
In the meantime, President Lee and his advisers must view Trump’s ongoing military entanglements as a cautionary backdrop to the risks of high-profile, personality-driven diplomacy. Trump’s record during his first round of negotiations with Kim underscores this concern. At the 2019 Hanoi, Vietnam, summit, he abruptly demanded full denuclearization as a precondition for sanctions relief, reversing the more gradual, confidence-building approach agreed upon in Singapore in 2018.
The result was the well-known “no deal” in Hanoi. In its aftermath, Kim doubled down on nuclear and missile development while pursuing economic self-reliance. He also pivoted toward Russia, forging a strategic partnership that includes support for Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine in exchange for economic and military assistance. Although North Korea appears to have weathered severe economic hardship, Kim must recognize that sustainable growth beyond subsistence will ultimately require normalized relations with Washington.
Given Trump’s inconsistent track record and the repeated failures of past bilateral negotiations — both US-North Korea and inter-Korean — Lee and his policymakers must develop an independent and coherent strategy for engaging Pyongyang. Lee’s proposed three-stage process of “exchange,” “normalization” and ultimately “denuclearization” reflects a pragmatic recognition that immediate denuclearization is not a realistic objective.
Two recent policy proposals offer useful guidance for implementing such an approach. One is “From Deadlock to Dialogue on the Korean Peninsula: Time to Revisit Northeast Asian Regional Security Talks,” by Tytti Erasto and Fei Su of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The other is “The Lee Jae Myung Administration’s Pragmatic Diplomacy for National Interest and Measures to Realize the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” by Cho Sung-ryul, a visiting professor at Kyungnam University.
Erasto and Su advocate reviving the Six-Party Talks — involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan — which collapsed in 2009. They also suggest including Mongolia as a neutral facilitator to support sustained dialogue. As they note, while the concept of a regional security framework in Northeast Asia is not new and previous efforts have fallen short, the current environment of heightened risk and the evident limits of bilateral diplomacy make a renewed multilateral push both timely and necessary.
Crucially, they argue that such a framework could temporarily set aside the divisive issue of denuclearization, thereby facilitating inter-Korean reconciliation and broader risk reduction. This pragmatic sequencing could help rebuild trust while laying the groundwork for more substantive negotiations in the future.
Cho offers a more concrete proposal in the form of a “multilateral compound security guarantees model.” His approach envisions China and Russia as potential providers of extended deterrence for a denuclearized North Korea. The model seeks to overcome the entrenched trilemma in the peninsula’s security architecture — namely, the tension among maintaining a strong Korea-US alliance, achieving denuclearization and establishing a durable peace regime.
According to Cho, progress requires a strategic evolution of the Korea-US alliance, including redefining the role of US Forces Korea as a regional stabilizer rather than a force solely focused on deterring North Korea or countering China. At the same time, China and Russia must be incentivized to act as active co-managers of regional security and to support the normalization of US-North Korea relations in exchange for strategic benefits.
This model links North Korea’s economic stability directly to its denuclearization commitments, with provisions for immediate “snapback” measures in the event of noncompliance. By combining US-led structural adjustments with security guarantees from China and Russia, it seeks to address Pyongyang’s security concerns while reinforcing its responsibilities as a member of the international community.
Ultimately, such proposals point toward a possible transition from a relationship defined by hostility to one characterized by peaceful coexistence, and, in the long term, the prospect of unification.
Lee Kyong-hee
Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.