It is a truth universally acknowledged that North Korea will come to its senses and stop being so confrontational if only, like a wayward teenager, we'd show it some love and affection. Angela Merkel is the latest to buy into the idea that Trump is only making matters worse, and that we should talk to North Korea and offer an Iran-type deal:
Angela Merkel has offered German participation in any future nuclear talks with North Korea and suggested that the 2015 agreement with Iran could serve as a model for negotiations.
The chancellor’s intervention reflects growing alarm in Europe that Donald Trump is worsening one nuclear crisis by repeated threats to use military force against North Korea, and seeking to trigger a second one by torpedoing the Iran deal to which Germany, France and the UK are among the signatories.
“If our participation in talks is desired, I will immediately say yes,” Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an interview published on Sunday.
She pointed to the example of the agreement sealed in Vienna in July 2015 by Iran, the five permanent members of the UN security council and Germany, describing it as “a long but important time of diplomacy” that ultimately had a good end.
Did it? Iran certainly thinks so. Israel, and anyone else paying attention – not so much.
Putin has, naturally enough, dismissed sanctions against Pyongyang as a waste of time. He's keen to pursue other ways forward…anything, basically, that will undermine the US approach. Even better if he can help to subvert the US-South Korea alliance. And he may have found a way, with the help of new South Korean President Moon Jae-In, who, as we've seen, has a worrying history of wanting to appease the North Koreans. It involves Russia and South Korea getting together with the North for a new Northern Policy:
South Korea's unification ministry said Friday it plans to seek trilateral economic cooperation involving the two Koreas and Russia after taking into account international sanctions and public sentiment.
President Moon Jae-in has unveiled the so-called new Northern Policy designed to expand economic cooperation with northern states including North Korea.
The Ministry of Unification said that the initiative involving the two Koreas and Russia will help implement Moon's another vision to build a new economic belt with North Korea….
During his latest visit to Russia, Moon said Thursday that strengthening cooperation between the South and Russia in the Far East will help pave the way for eliciting North Korea's change.
It sounds like a new Kaesong – the industrial zone in the North where South Korean corporations employed North Koreans whose wages were taken by Pyongyang to build up their military and develop their nuclear capabilities. It didn't end well. But no lessons seem to have been learned.
The Moon Jae-in administration is reviewing a plan to build an industrial complex at the Russia-North Korea border as part of a trilateral economic cooperation project, the JoongAng Ilbo reported Friday, quoting multiple government sources.
The plan will be in clear defiance of the international community’s efforts to toughen economic sanctions against Pyongyang to pressure it to end its nuclear and missile programs.
“The key of the plan is building an industrial complex at the Rajin-Khasan region at the North-Russia border,” a Seoul official told the JoongAng Ilbo, on the condition of anonymity. “Before President Moon’s visit to Russia, Blue House aides and experts gathered and had a serious discussion on the plan.”…
Moon attended the Eastern Economic Forum, hosted earlier this week by Russia in Vladivostok, where he had a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday and discussed his plans for trilateral economic projects among the two Koreas and Russia….
In his keynote speech at the forum on Thursday, Moon again stressed his vision to push for trilateral economic cooperation.
“Even if the ambitions for the trilateral cooperation of the two Koreas and Russia cannot be pushed forward right now,” he said, “South Korea and Russia must cooperate to start bilateral projects that can be started immediately. If the North joins from the start, of course, that will be far more desirable.”
The source told the JoongAng Ilbo that the Blue House is determined to include North Korea.
Putin must be delighted. As will Kim Jong-un. More money to prop up his regime. More room for driving a wedge between South Korea and the US. – which is Kim's most cherished policy goal.
Mick Hartley 
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