To the North Korean Foreign Ministry, trust is paramount, and it comes primarily through building better relations. In its statement, the Kim government denounced Pompeo for pressing North Korea to disclose the various elements of its massive nuclear-weapons program and begin dismantling them in a manner that international inspectors can verify. Trump and Kim signed the same four-point joint declaration in Singapore, but whereas Trump tends to tout Point 3, the one concerning denuclearization, the Foreign Ministry’s statement focused on the first and second points, which deal with establishing a new relationship between the two nations and a “lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean peninsula.” The Foreign Ministry argued that a speedy declaration of the end of the Korean War—perhaps occurring as early as later this month, on the anniversary of the signing of the 1953 armistice—would be a “first” step in “defusing tension” and “creating trust.” It exaggerated the moves the North has made so far on denuclearization, such as blowing up a nuclear-test site and promising to demolish a missile-engine test site without committing to verification of the destruction by independent experts.

In my conversation with Cho, who maintained that Kim may indeed be serious about giving up his nuclear weapons in exchange for economic development and security guarantees, the ambassador argued that parallel progress on new relations and denuclearization would be “mutually reinforcing.” Kim may be hedging on relinquishing his nuclear program because he hasn’t yet received “clear assurance of his regime security,” Cho reasoned, but a declaration to end the Korean War in the coming months could afford the North Koreans the reassurance they need to move toward full denuclearization and a final peace treaty. The Kim government might be less resistant to efforts to verify the dismantling of its nuclear program if it viewed the United States and South Korea as friends, he added.

Among the downsides of this approach, however, is that it requires the very drawn-out, years-long process that the Trump administration has sought to avoid as a fatal error of previous negotiations. As Cho noted, the United States and North Korea haven’t had a real relationship for 70 years, and it takes a long time to build one.

And if North Korea “focuses heavily or only on a peace regime and normalizing relations with the U.S. while pushing serious negotiations on denuclearization to much later … nuclear talks [could] become hostage to peace talks,” said Duyeon Kim of the Center for a New American Security. “Then we may end up signing peace with a nuclear-armed, economically vibrant North Korea that also enjoys normal relations with the U.S.”

Cheon argued that while a declaration to end the Korean War might seem like a valuable confidence-building measure that shouldn’t be opposed, the step could have unintended consequences—for example, intensifying the pressure to replace the armistice with a peace treaty even if North Korea hasn’t made corresponding nuclear concessions, and even if such a treaty would likely result in the North achieving its longstanding strategic goal: the end of the U.S.–South Korea military alliance. (Why keep U.S. forces in Korea if there’s peace on the peninsula?)