North Korea needs a way to back down
There is one entirely reasonable thing that North Korea has asked for, a promise that America will not attack.
America refuses to give this until North Korea has given up its nuclear weapons program, with George W Bush saying he wouldn’t give in to blackmail.
North Korea does have genuine security concerns and its leader also needs a way to back down without suffering intolerable loss of face.
A symbolic withdrawal of some of the military forces the US has amassed near Kim Jong-Un’s border might be the beginning of a way forward.
Brendan O’Brien, London N21