[Herald Interview] Ex-deputy chief of US mission urges fresh approach to N. Korea

WASHINGTON — A yearslong deadlock in bilateral talks between the US and North Korea suggests the necessity for the Joe Biden administration to enterprise for unexplored methods with the intention to carry Pyongyang again to the negotiation desk, a former deputy chief of US mission in Seoul stated.

“At this level, the ball actually is in North Korea’s courtroom. The US and South Korea have proven what they’re ready to supply,” stated Mark Tokola, vice chairman of the Korea Financial Institute of America, in an interview with The Korea Herald on Nov. 1. “However there are some issues we might try this we haven’t performed.”

The previous US international service official who was stationed in Seoul from August 2009 to July 2012 advised that the US might maintain typical arms talks with the 2 Koreas to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula, forge a brand new format of multilateral negotiating framework or, most significantly, begin with an financial dialogue.

The solutions got here as Pyongyang has been unresponsive to the Biden administration’s repeated private and non-private overtures to “meet with out preconditions,” whereas accelerating its army buildup and persevering with nuclear saber-rattling.

At first, the three events — the US and two Koreas — in response to Tokola, might negotiate on ranges and places of armaments together with artillery, missiles, helicopters and tanks, in addition to search “military-to-military dialogue and mutual statement of workouts” by holding typical arms talks.

“Even when the outcomes had been modest, this may be one approach to scale back tensions on the peninsula other than talks on denuclearization. Typical arms talks between NATO and the Warsaw Pact lowered tensions in Europe and would possibly function a mannequin,” he added, referring to the 1992 Treaty on Typical Armed Forces in Europe.

However North Korea’s cussed adherence to nuclear weapons, the US might search to carry various kinds of multilateral negotiations with completely different events concerned from the previous.

“We might get different international locations concerned. I’m undecided we’ve tried sufficient to usher in different gamers. North Korea is unwilling to speak to South Korea and the US, (however) perhaps they discuss to Mongolia, European Union, Switzerland … and Vietnam,” Tokola stated. “North Korea might have a brand new strategy. So, getting extra gamers concerned might help.”

As an example, Mongolia has been thought of a key potential mediator in gentle of its comparatively amicable relations with the 2 Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan, and its profitable and peaceable transition from a communist state to a democracy. North Korean state media in September additionally reported that Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh invited North Korean chief Kim Jong-un to go to Mongolia at his comfort.

“There’s an argument for together with Mongolia on this attainable six-party framework. It’s within the area, in any case, and as a mineral-rich nation bordering China, is located equally to North Korea.”

Tokola additionally advised that negotiations to pursue North Korea’s signing of the Chemical Weapons Conference — which goals to remove a whole class of weapons of mass destruction — may very well be an vital stepping-stone to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Three UN member states — Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan — have neither signed nor ratified the multilateral treaty that entered into pressure in 1997.

“I feel it’s most likely as vital or perhaps extra vital than typical arms talks with North Korea,” Tokola stated. “It’s not troublesome to signal as a result of so many international locations have. If we tried to induce so much with South Korea and China for North Korea to signal the Chemical Weapons Conference, that might be a superb step in direction of decreasing tensions.”

Tokola stated, nevertheless, the “concept of a multilateral negotiating framework ought to be thought of as a risk” though Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine has made it unattainable to revive the Six-Get together Talks.

Financial dialogue
Tokola stated the US might entice North Korea with a renewed financial strategy, provided that the framework of exchanging denuclearization measures in return for sanctions relaxations “has failed.”

“The financial presents to North Korea are usually good, however we may very well be extra particular,” he stated. “We might discuss making an attempt to assist them be a part of the World Financial institution or the IMF (Worldwide Financial Fund). So there are completely different matters we might talk about.”

Within the US-North Korea Agreed Framework signed in 1994, North Korea agreed to freeze operations and development of its nuclear reactors in return for a bundle of financial, power and diplomatic advantages from the US, together with development of light-water reactor energy crops. However the deal failed.

Tokola underscored that the US ought to make particular proposals to assist the Kim Jong-un regime repair systemic flaws in its financial system or keep on financial reform.

“It’s going to be extra than simply providing them meals or providing them one thing substantial. I feel it must be form of systematic or reform-minded,” he stated. “If that was accelerated to assist North Korea extra with property legislation or business legislation or issues they’ll really use to develop economically, that might present some form of opening.”

Tokola considered that the Kim regime nonetheless seeks financial reform, regardless of present steps backward within the purpose and old school methods to resume industries and revitalize the faltering economic system.

The North Korean management is conscious of systemic issues in its economic system “which is essentially damaged,” nevertheless it has not discovered repair the issues which have aggravated the financial backwardness.

“Kim Jong-un’s long-term survival is dependent upon the North Korean economic system succeeding. He advised his personal people who ‘you decide the North Korean state by whether or not it makes your lives higher,’” Tokola stated. “Nicely, it’s not proper now, however I feel it’s most likely extra vital than the nuclear facet within the interim.”

However North Korean chief Kim Jong-un publicly underscored that his nation won’t ever hand over on nuclear weapons, and due to this fact “there can be completely no denuclearization first and no negotiation to that finish” in his key coverage speech in September.

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The Korea Herald performed a sequence of interviews with former senior US officers and specialists in Washington from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 on the event of the 54th South Korea-US Safety Consultative Assembly. That is the final in a sequence of interviews. — Ed.

By Ji Da-gyum (dagyumji@heraldcorp.com)