§It Is Wrong for the United States to Restore Its Hard Line towards North Korea. The United States Should Shift its Policy to the Easing of Economic Sanctions in a Phased Manner.
Ever
since the unsuccessful ending of the second US-DPRK Summit that took place in Hanoi
on February 27-28, there are signs that the situation on the Korean Peninsula is
getting worse.
US
foreign policy is apparently reverting to a hard line stance. At a Special
Briefing held at the US Department of State on March 7, a week after the
Summit, a senior official of the State Department clearly indicated the US intention
not to take a step-by-step approach to denuclearization [1]:
Reporter’s question: …Can you
say confidently that all of the different members of President Trump’s advisory
team on the negotiations with North Korea were in agreement with the
all-or-nothing strategy the President ultimately embraced in Hanoi? And I ask
because there’s the appearance that Mr. Bolton may have had the most influence
over the President’s decision not to embrace a more step-by-step approach that
others on the team had advocated for in the weeks leading up to this summit.
Senior State Department official: …[N]obody
in the administration advocates a step-by-step approach. In all cases, the
expectation is a complete denuclearization of North Korea as a condition for
all the other steps being – all the other steps being taken. It has very much
been characteristic of past negotiations to take an incremental approach to
this that stretches it out over a long period of time, and quite honestly, has
failed on previous occasions to deliver the outcome that both sides at least
ostensibly committed to. This would be in the 1994 Agreed Framework
negotiations as well as in the Six-Party Talks. So we’re trying to do it
differently here. The President has made abundantly clear to Chairman Kim that
he’s personally invested in taking North Korea in this direction if North Korea
gives up all of its weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivery…
Thus,
the Trump administration unanimously clarified its intention to oppose a step-by-step
approach. Moreover, the administration ascribed the failure of past
negotiations to the adoption of step-by-step approaches, an assertion that lacks
factual grounding. This policy is different from the tone of the speech made at
Stanford University by Stephen Biegun, US Special Representative for North
Korea, the content of which was introduced in “Watch Report No. 5.”
However,
Biegun himself confirmed the above-mentioned senior State Department official’s
statement at the 2019 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, which
was organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on March 11. The
New York Times Pentagon Correspondent, Helene Cooper, who facilitated
the dialogue with Biegun at the Conference, compared his own words in his
Stanford speech with those of the senior official and asked him, “Which is it?”
Biegun replied, “the semantic differences (between the two words) I have to say
escape me,” and concluded [2]:
“We are
not going to do denuclearization incrementally. The President has been clear on
that and that is a position around which the U.S. government has complete
unity. …we would be in a position where we would be lifting all the economic
pressure that's been imposed upon North Korea for the totality of its weapons
of mass destruction programs.”
“…the
administration has been clear from the President on down that we will not lift
these sanctions until North Korea completes the process of denuclearization.”
According
to Biegun’s explanation on that day, the Trump administration’s current foreign
policy can be summarized as follows: The US and DPRK made four agreements at
the Singapore Summit: (1) establishing new US-DPRK relations; (2) building a
lasting and stable peace regime; (3) complete denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula; and, (4) commitment to recovering POW/MIA remains. As all four of
these are linked with one another, the administration is ready to pursue them
in parallel. However, denuclearization is at the foundation of everything. The
administration is trying to convince the DPRK that an all-at-once denuclearization
can advance the other priorities all at once too. In response to the question,
“[I]f the North agreed to more limited sanctions relief in exchange for
Yongbyon, would you be receptive?”. Biegun gave no clear answer, but he did not
deny the possibility.
On
March 30, Reuters published an exclusive story [3] based on a piece of paper they had obtained. According to the
article, the paper, which was assumed to have been handed from President Trump
to Chairman Kim Jong-Un, included demands from the US on denuclearization - that
the DPRK transfer its nuclear weapons and all its fissile material to the
United States. Those demands remind one of the so-called Libya model, which John
Bolton, U.S. National Security Affairs Advisor to the President, used to
advocate. Though such a model is unlikely in this case, still it cannot be
denied that the denuclearization scenario that the Trump administration
intended to implement immediately may have had this kind of proposal.
At
any rate, a “non-step-by-step denuclearization” policy lacks reality and is almost
a fantasy. The United States and the DPRK have a long history of mutual distrust
that cannot be swept away easily. In this situation, it would be impossible to persuade
the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons all at once, for nuclear weapons represent
the DPRK’s sole deterrence against the US. With the Trump administration
clinging to such a policy, there may be a danger that US-DPRK negotiations will
squander the current historic opportunity for peace.
On
March 15 in Pyongyang, DPRK Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui invited
and spoke to the resident diplomats and foreign media. The purpose of the
meeting was to warn about this danger. Among the foreign media, the Associated
Press (AP) and the Russian News Agency TASS were confirmed to have been present.
Meanwhile, on March 25, NEWSIS, a South Korean Internet media outlet, obtained
and released the full text of Vice Minister Choe’s opening remarks at the
meeting. Compared to the AP article [4],
the message from the raw, full text published by NEWSIS [5] sounds cooler, giving the impression there is more room for future
negotiations.
The
most important part in Vice Minister Choe’s opening address is the following
passage:
“When we
made a practical proposal in the talks (in Hanoi), President Trump adopted the
flexible position that an agreement would be possible if a clause was added
stating that the sanctions could be re-imposed if North Korea resumed nuclear
activities after the sanctions were lifted. However, because of their
continuing hostility and mistrust, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White
House National Security Advisor John Bolton created obstacles to the two
leaders’ efforts to have constructive negotiations, and ultimately the summit
didn’t produce meaningful results.”
According
to this passage, while President Trump was flexible about the partial lifting
of sanctions against the DPRK, Secretary Pompeo and Special Advisor Bolton were
not.
The
Watch Report has repeatedly
emphasized that “phased sanctions relief” is the key in US-DPRK negotiations. It
seems this is becoming a reality. The DPRK has been taking the position that
the UN Security Council Resolutions posing sanctions against them are invalid
in the first place, and that they do not accept those resolutions. There may
well be a diverse range of opinions, both for and against, regarding such DPRK’s
position. In the meantime, however, Choe’s remarks stating that, “There is no cause
at all to preserve the sanctions in a situation where we have been suspending
nuclear tests and ICBM test-launches over the past 15 months. We are sure the UN
Security Council can answer this question even more clearly,” should be
understandable for most people. While there may be some point in claiming that the
imposition of strong sanctions opened the dialogue with the DPRK, what reason
can there be for maintaining strong sanctions at this stage when the DPRK has
already started the dialogue and is willing to continue it? What is happening
now is that sanctions are beginning to disrupt the continuation of dialogue.
Most
of the UN Security Council’s sanctions resolutions on DPRK contain the
following provision:
“(The UN Security
Council) affirms that it shall keep the DPRK’s actions under continuous review
and is prepared to strengthen, modify, suspend or lift the measures as may be
needed in light of the DPRK’s compliance.” (For example, Operative Paragraph 28
of the latest resolution S/RES/2397 (2017) [6]
and Operative Paragraph 32 of the preceding resolution S/RES/2395 (2017) [7].)
In
other words, the sanctions resolutions of the Security Council are adopted
under the premise that the sanctions would be tightened or eased according to
the DPRK’s status of compliance with the resolutions. This is why the Security
Council kept tightening sanctions, in a phased manner, every time the DPRK
conducted nuclear tests or missile launches. By the same token, it is a natural
duty of the Security Council to discuss phased sanctions relief in the present
situation.
Civil
society must raise its voice and urge action, not only by the US, but by their
own governments and by the UN Security Council. (Hiromichi UMEBAYASHI and Kana
HIRAI)
[1] U.S. Department of State, “Senior State
Department Official On North Korea,” March 7, 2019 https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2019/03/290084.htm
[2] “A Conversation with U.S. Special
Representative Stephen Biegun,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019
Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, March 11, 2019
[3] “Exclusive: With a piece of paper, Trump
called on Kim to hand over nuclear weapons,” Reuters, March 30, 2019
[4] Eric Talmadge, “NKorean official: Kim
rethinking US talks, launch moratorium,” AP, March 15, 2019
[5] An article by NEWSIS (in Korean), March 25,
2019
Full
text of the Choe Son-hui’s opening remarks is translated into Japanese on Korea
News No.766 by The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. March 26,
2019
No comments:
Post a Comment