Crossing the 33rd parallel

A tweet is not the most orthodox way of resolving a 66-year-old conflict. US President Trump did exactly that, tweeting a desire to cross the 33rd parallel, the latitude that is the border between North and South Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was receptive to the proposal and Trump became the first serving US President to cross the armistice line. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, present during the summit meeting between the two leaders, declined to spell out what transpired. But adherents of classical diplomacy, where painstaking groundwork precedes a summit meeting, are aghast. So are the American nuclear Ayatollahs who suspect Trump is tacitly accepting North Korea as a nuclear power.

It is too early to say whether Trump’s approach will fetch results that the traditional approach could not. But it holds two important lessons. One, Trump can apply this improvisation to Iran to reduce tensions currently at boiling point. Two, one effort is not enough. Though North Korea had rebuffed Bill Clinton and George Bush, Trump nevertheless has already tried thrice. If Kim, who has shown no inclination to shelve his N-programme, is worthy of a third attempt by Trump, so is Iran. But Iran is a complex case; there are powerful forces out to muddy the waters.

Inveterate rivals, India and Pakistan too need to borrow from Trump’s playbook. Intuitive, feel-good summits have resolved several impasses in the past and PM Modi believes personal chemistry is an invaluable tool in diplomacy. He had made a surprise stopover in Lahore in 2015 but suffered a loss in political capital due to the Pathankot air base attack. Breaking the ice with North Korea was easier because for some time now, no new dispute was added to the existing portfolio. India-Pakistan and US-Iran are also in need of an innovative approach to diplomacy. There is no magic key for unlocking both disputes but dialogue, as in the case of North Korea. It will stop the situation from going from bad to worse.