The United States appears to be cooling on the idea of joining South Korea and independently sanctioning North Korea for its role in the sinking of the Cheonan.
Immediately after the Cheonan incident until the UN Security Council Presidential Statement was released, the U.S. appeared keen on sanctioning the North. Especially, Washington appointed someone to take charge of sanctions implementation, Robert Einhorn. This result brought about speculation that additional financial sanctions were being planned.
However, the atmosphere changed completely right after the Presidential Statement came out on July 9th, to the extent that rumors now suggest the U.S. will halt, or at least postpone, sanctions altogether.
This has become especially obvious since North Korea indicated its desire to resume the Six-Party Talks, releasing a statement on July 10th whereby, “We are going to make a constant effort to conclude a peace treaty and also to realize denuclearization on an equal basis through the Six-Party Talks.”
Therefore, it seems that the U.S. is going to postpone the scheduled sanctions measures and observe North Korea’s attitude first. Presumably, the better Pyongyang behaves, the less chance of sanctions there will be.
On this, one anonymous North Korean expert explained, “The position of South Korea and the U.S grew murky after the UN Security Council Presidential Statement. The U.S. appears to be discussing how and at what level measures will be taken while observing the response of China and the communications channel between South Korea and themselves.”
Especially, he added, “There is a distinct possibility that South Korea and U.S. measures might come to nothing if specific implementation does not take place after the ROK-US National Defense and Foreign Ministers meeting on July 21st and ASEAN Regional Forum on July 23rd.”
Indeed, yesterday one high-ranking official in Seoul added to the speculation by commenting, “The detail of ROK-US measures will change according to the change in North Korea’s attitude.” This is exceedingly moderate compared to the former position, whereby the South Korean government was going to begin North Korean sanctions straight after the UN Security Council Presidential Statement.
The atmosphere can also be deduced from a passage in yesterday’s State Department briefing, “If North Korea wants to engage seriously in the six-party process, there are very specific actions that North Korea has to take first before we would consider a resumption of the six-party process.”
Accordingly, the postponement of ROK-US joint military exercise thanks to Chinese resistance is being seen as a strategic judgment to avoid unnecessarily provoking China by straining the North East Asian political situation since the U.S. and South Korea are hoping for cooperation from China in the denuclearization process.
In conclusion, Park Young Ho of Korea Institute for National Unification said during a phone interview with The Daily NK on July 14th, “The U.S. has decided that at the current time giving the impression that they are strongly pushing North Korea is not good. Now they are observing North Korea’s attitude to offer an opportunity to seek a kind of exit.”
Also, Park added, “Since the Presidential Statement, China has been discussing the Six-Party talks. The U.S. needs to manage the Korean Peninsula in a stable way.”
