“Evidently, North Korea should undo the knot,” South Korea’s Minister of Unification told a forum today, speaking of the Gordian knot represented by the nuclear issue. “North Korea should show its sincere will for denuclearization and offer a specific plan of action as soon as possible.”
Giving the commemorative address to the Korea Global Forum (KGF), Minister Hyun In Taek further pointed out, “Now, North Korea is at a decisive turning point. Its development of nuclear weapons has added instability to its system and given it an economic problem different from that which it intended, plunging it into crisis.”
He added, “It is a problem the world should solve together, alongside the region,” adding, “We need a clear consensus on solving the North Korean nuclear issue and common acknowledgement that it is a pressing issue.”
Meanwhile, a former foreign affairs minister and sitting chair of KGF, Han Seung Ju noted in his opening remarks, “As North Korea seems to want to be recognized as a nuclear power, the North now has a serious dilemma between economic survival and systemic survival.”
He added, “North Korea wields nuclear weapons, but it cannot revive its crumbling economy with those nuclear weapons.” Nevertheless, he predicted, “North Korea will probably keep threatening others using open and illicit activities as well as nuclear weapons.”
The Korea Global Forum is a semi-governmental consultative group organized by the Ministry of Unification and Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University, whose mission is to expand the international consensus on peace and unification on the Korean Peninsula.
