North Korea is doing some outreach to one of its few friends:
A North Korean diplomatic delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong-ho has departed for Mongolia, the North’s state media reported Sunday.
The delegation left from Pyongyang International Airport in the capital Saturday, the Rodong Sinmun, the North’s main newspaper, said, without specifying the purpose of the trip.
The diplomatic delegation’s visit to Mongolia marks the first of its kind since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The North last sent a delegation to the country in 2019.
The latest trip is seen as part of the North’s diplomatic efforts to strengthen ties with its traditionally friendly countries.
Mongolia is viewed as having close relations with the North, having maintained its diplomatic mission in Pyongyang even during the pandemic despite strict border restrictions.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Jung Pak the U.S. nuclear envoy to North Korea seems to be hinting that the U.S. is open to a deal that does not include the denuclearization of North Korea. This validates what a National Security Council spokesman put out earlier this week:
The top U.S. nuclear envoy pointed out the need Tuesday for “interim steps” to be taken on a path towards North Korea’s ultimate denuclearization, which she stressed would not happen “overnight.”
U.S. Senior Official for North Korea Jung Pak made the remarks while reiterating Washington’s “clear” goal to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. (……)
“I don’t want to prejudge that as a final step,” she said at a forum hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But I think it goes without saying that there would have to be interim steps toward ultimate denuclearization.”
Yonhap
Here is what the U.S. would focus a so called interim deal on, freezing other weapons programs that North Korea has:
“I think it is really important to acknowledge that there is a lot of weapons to be dealt with,” she said, noting the North’s efforts to develop solid-fuel ballistic missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, hypersonic capabilities and unmanned underwater vehicles.
“Given the scope of the DPRK weapons activities and its proliferation, there is a lot to work with there … It is not going to happen overnight. That’s the reality of it,” she added. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
You can read more at the link, but in my opinion the best that can be hoped for at this point is an agreement limiting the amount of nuclear weapons North Korea has, a ban on proliferation, and an end to their ICBM program in return for dropping sanctions.
I have been saying this for years that North Korea is never going to denuclearize and it appears U.S. negotiators may finally be understanding this:
Mira Rapp-Hooper, the U.S. National Security Council senior director for East Asia and Oceania, speaks during a forum in Seoul co-hosted by South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on March 4, 2024.
The United States seeks dialogue with North Korea, including on mitigating the risk of an inadvertent conflict on the Korean Peninsula, a National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson said Monday, stressing its goal for the “complete” denuclearization of the peninsula remains unchanged.
The remarks came after Mira Rapp-Hooper, the NSC senior director for East Asia and Oceania, said this week that Washington will consider “interim steps” on the pathway toward the North’s denuclearization — a statement that raised speculation about a potential U.S. policy shift.
In the negotiation lexicon for the North, interim steps usually involve such measures as Pyongyang’s freeze of its nuclear weapons development in return for sanctions relief or other incentives to encourage the regime’s denuclearization efforts.
“Our position on the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula has not changed,” the spokesperson said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but in my opinion the best that can be hoped for at this point is an agreement limiting the amount of nuclear weapons North Korea has, a ban on proliferation, and an end to their ICBM program.
Orwell would be impressed by how North Korea is using their version of the “Ministry of Truth” to scrub their state media to create a new reality for their citizens:
North Korea has removed articles with unification references from the website of its state-run media outlet, after leader Kim Jong-un called South Korea the North’s “primary foe” and vowed not to seek unification with the South.
As of Monday, a majority of the articles containing references to unification, such as “peaceful reunification,” “great national unity” and “northern half,” appear to have been deleted from the website of the North’s Korean Central News Agency.
The move came as Kim has defined inter-Korean ties as relations between “two states hostile to each other” during a year-end party meeting.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
The Korea Times recently interviewed three Korean foreign policy experts about what they thought how a second Trump presidency would impact South Korea. What I found most interesting was not the Trump talk, but how these experts believe negotations with North Korea should continue to be centered around trying to get them to denuclearize:
Q: North Korea’s threat has become sophisticated. And the North had continued to build up its nuclear capabilities to solidify its status as a nuclear power. Given this, do you believe denuclearizing North Korea is achievable? Will there be a need to discard denuclearization negotiations and adopt a new format of disarmament talks?
Kim: Denuclearization is and should continue to be an end goal to achieve. This is a daunting task unprecedented in the history of nuclear arms control and disarmament, but it cannot be given up. If we give up denuclearization, North Korea will be recognized as a de facto nuclear state. And this likely means the beginning of the collapse of the NPT. This is a nightmare for all. If North Korea becomes a nuclear weapon state, this would agitate South Koreans, and public opinion would evolve even stronger in favor of South Korea’s nuclear armament. If South Korea arms itself with nuclear weapons, other countries in the region, such as Japan and even Taiwan, will also feel the need to follow suit. If this happens, not only the U.S. but also China will face unmanageable proliferation risks.
A nuclear-weapon-free North Korea may sound unfeasible at the moment, but we need to keep trying to make it happen. For that, we need to prevail on North Korea to come back to negotiation on the basis that everything should be on the table. This means both of our and their concerns must not be precluded from any negotiation.
Ahn: The importance of the NPT cannot be overstated. When the treaty was proposed by the U.S. in 1960’s, the former Soviet Union was fully supportive because there was a shared belief that the international community needed such a scheme to prevent proliferation. The first survey that asked South Koreans about their opinions about South Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons was released in 2022 and at that time, 76 percent of South Koreans were in favor. The U.S. officials and think tank experts whom I met were stunned whenever they heard about the survey results. Eventually, South Koreans’ overwhelming support for nuclear armament became a type of leverage and convinced the U.S. to team up with South Korea to create the Nuclear Consultation Group (NCG). The NCG is a very useful institution for South Korea and we need to make the most of it to deter North Korea’s threat.
Korea Times
You can read much more at the link, but I just don’t see how you negotiate to achieve something that is not going to happen. Kim Jong-un is not going to give up his nuclear weapons, it is his ultimate regime survival trump card. Plus his nuclear weapons program to continues to make his regime relevant internationally. He has already turned down a deal for denuclearization in return for dropping of sanctions and nothing has changed in the intervening years that would change his mind.
