What Could a Russia-North Korea Summit Mean?

Posted: April 24th, 2019

By Kenneth Dekleva

Dr. Kenneth Dekleva is a former physician-diplomat with the U.S. State Dept. and Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Psychiatry-Medicine Integration, UT Southwestern Medical Center and senior Fellow, George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations. He is the author of two novels, The Negotiator's Cross and The Last Violinist. The views expressed are his own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, State Dept., or UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Thursday’s expected summit between DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, Russia follows on the heels of President Donald Trump’s second summit with the North Korean leader in Vietnam that ended without an agreement between the two leaders on denuclearization.

Kim may have achieved a ‘victory’ in Hanoi, by once again being recognized as a statesman and leader of a [de facto] nuclear power, achieving a milestone way beyond his father Kim Jong-il’s and grandfather Kim Il-sung’s wildest dreams, but with the failure to obtain an interim agreement and/or even partial sanctions relief, it represents a pyrrhic victory.

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