WASHINGTON - Experts are urging the Biden administration to send an early signal to North Korea, conveying its interest in keeping diplomacy open even as Washington conducts policy reviews on how to deal with the regime so that it can gauge Pyongyang’s response for possible talks. “I believe that as part of the administration’s policy review, it makes sense to establish a private channel of communications to reach out to North Korea and to evaluate North Korea’s response,” said Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That message should indicate parameters and framing for potential follow-up dialogue opportunities.” Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ro Khanna urged President Joe Biden to “promptly seek” talks with North Korea in a letter sent on Wednesday . “We hope that your administration’s North Korea policy review concludes that a step-by-step process — which tailors sanctions relief to the scope of a North Korean commitment to freeze and unwind its nuclear and ballistic missile programs — is the wisest course of action,” Markey and Khanna said in the letter. The Biden administration has been highlighting the threats of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs but did not indicate it has reached out to North Korea as it conducts its policy review on deciding how to deal with North Korea, which is expected to take some time . Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Philip Davidson said, “North Korea will remain our most immediate threat to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific” unless “the nuclear situation is resolved” and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “agrees to complete denuclearization.” He made the remark on Wednesday at an event hosted by the U.S.-based Institute for Corea-American Studies, a non-profit, non-partisan group focused on improving ties between the United States and Asia-Pacific Rim nations. While detailing the top foreign policy priorities of the U.S. in his speech on ...
What is a authoritarian regime
As Biden Mulls North Korea, Some Urge Arms Control Approach
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - Former U.S. President Donald Trump tried threats of "fire and fury,” followed by personal letters and made-for-TV summits to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons. As U.S. President Joe Biden now maps out his own strategy for North Korea, many former U.S. officials want the White House to base its approach on a less flashy but in some ways even more provocative idea: that North Korea has no plans to abandon the nuclear program it spent decades building. The United States has long demanded the complete denuclearization of North Korea, even as a wide range of Korea watchers agreed that will likely never happen. For many, the alternative is simply unfathomable; recognizing North Korea as a nuclear weapons state could convince other nations to pursue the bomb, leading to a regional or global arms race. But with or without recognition, North Korea has made steady progress on its nuclear and missile programs. According to recent estimates , North Korea possesses anywhere from 15-60 nuclear warheads. It also has an increasingly diverse array of ballistic missiles, including some that may be able to reach anywhere in the continental United States. Given the trajectory, a growing number of observers advocate what they say is a more pragmatic approach that would aim to cap or reduce the threat of North Korea’s arsenal, even if the immediate goal isn’t full denuclearization. More pragmatic “A reality check is overdue,” said Markus Garlauskas, a former U.S. intelligence official, in an article this month published by the U.S. Institute for Peace. Garlauskas is not just any analyst; until June he was the U.S. government’s top intelligence officer for North Korea. US Says North Korea an Urgent Priority State Department says US committed to denuclearization of the country In Garlauskas' view, U.S. policy toward North Korea has been based on two ideas that have proven false: 1) ...
Inter-Korean Olympic Sports Exchange Could Undermine ‘Spirit of Sanctions’
With just days before the opening ceremony for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, some U.S. experts are voicing concern that the highly publicized inter-Korean sports exchanges could undermine international sanctions intended to tighten the flow of cash into North Korea and pressure it to renounce its nuclear weapons and missiles programs. Experts voiced their unease to VOA's Korean Service over the joint Korean ski training exercises held January 31 in North Korea's Masikryong Ski Resort , which was built with — and is operated using — equipment considered "luxury goods" prohibited under U.N. sanctions because skiing is a non-essential activity. "I think they are walking a very fine line on the spirit of sanctions," said William Newcomb, a former U.S. Treasury official who served as a member of the U.N. Security Expert Panel on North Korea. According to Joshua Stanton, a Washington-based attorney who helped draft the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, some of the resort's equipment such as snowmobiles and ski lifts, while necessary for daily operations, could be considered in violation of sanctions imposed against North Korea . "There [is] something maybe bigger than the spirit of sanctions here. ... Resolution 1718 prohibits North Korea from importing luxury goods, and clearly Masikryong would not run without luxury goods that were imported in violation of what the sanctions clearly intended," Stanton said. Masikryong, opened in 2013, was built with Australian-manufactured equipment supplied by Chinese companies , which claimed that the equipment cannot be considered luxury items because skiing is a "normal activity" in North Korea. Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, thinks the decision to hold the joint ski exercises was wrong in that it legitimized North Korea's defiance of U.N. sanctions. The decision by the administration of South Korea's ...
