Experts on North Korea have painted this afternoon’s North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong Island as a drastic attempt to generate dialogue with the U.S.
President of the Sejong Institute Song Dae Sung told The Daily NK in a phone interview, “North Korea’s extreme action can be seen as a threat by which to generate dialogue with President Obama,” and added, “Even though they displayed centrifuges through which they could produce uranium weapons, there was no change in the U.S. attitude, so they carried out the attack on us.”
Kim Yeon Su, a professor with Korean National Defense University, explained, “Even though the uranium enrichment program was shown off recently, an atmosphere for dialogue was not created, so this is to get through the current situation by generating a crisis on the Korean Peninsula.”
Cho Myung Cheol, a researcher with Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, interpreted, “North Korea committed this provocation in order to strengthen internal solidarity for the stability of the succession system and particularly to show off internationally that there are no problems in the succession.”
On the succession system, Professor Kim agreed, saying, “Since there have been criticisms of the succession system and public opinion has become unstable in the process of the establishment of the Kim Jong Eun succession, the North attacked the South in order to cover for its internal instability.”
Meanwhile, another analysis has it that North Korea wants to lead the South towards an appeasement policy by raising inter-Korean and military conflict.
An anonymous expert on diplomacy and security said, “It was to report that the Lee Myung Bak administration’s policy on North Korea has failed by sending a warning to the South, ‘It is up to South Korea’ to choose either war or peace.”
