A photo of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter meeting with Kim Il Sung hangs at the Carter Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, USA / Photo courtesy of Dong-Wan Kang, professor at Dong-A University

This is the year of the “Blue Dragon.” What are your wishes for the New Year? I wish for the peaceful reunification of Korea, from Mt. Halla in the south to Mt. Baekdu in the north. I started my new year in Atlanta, where I had the opportunity to visit a museum dedicated to former President and Atlanta native Jimmy Carter. What struck me most about my trip to the museum was a photo of President Carter meeting with Kim Il Sung on his 1994 trip to North Korea.

In March 1993, North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), triggering the first North Korean nuclear crisis. During the eighth round of working-level inter-Korean talks in March 1994 to discuss an exchange of special envoys, a negotiator for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), Park Young Soo, made his now infamous remarks: “Seoul is not far from here. We’ll turn Seoul into a sea of fire.” The remarks brought the two countries to the brink of war.

In September 1994, the crisis on the Korean Peninsula reached a fever pitch when two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and 33 destroyers converged on the East Sea near Wonsan in preparation for an attack on the Yongbyon nuclear facility. It was at this critical juncture that former President Carter made an informal surprise visit to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Il Sung. He proposed a North-South summit before passing through Panmunjom on his way to Seoul to meet with then-South Korean President Kim Young Sam. While it’s impossible to rewrite history, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Kim Il Sung had taken President Carter’s advice and met with President Kim Yong Sam. Would we have been able to avoid our current predicament by negotiating to build light water reactors in North Korea and prevent nuclear armament? Some 30 years have passed since then, but the North Korean nuclear issue persists and the threat of war still looms.

At the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in December 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed that “reunification with the Republic of Korea is [no longer] possible. The relationship between the north and the south is no longer one of kinship between a common people. We have become nothing but two antagonistic belligerent nations at war.”

With the North announcing its intention to expand its nuclear arsenal and launch additional military reconnaissance satellites, tensions between the two Koreas have reached catastrophic heights. In short, yesterday’s “sea of fire” has become today’s “readiness for war.” North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal remains a threat, further fanning the embers of hostility between the two nations. With nuclear weapons in hand, three generations of Kims continue to jeopardize the stability and peace of the Korean Peninsula with their war games.

My message to Kim Jong Un for 2024 is, in the words of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, “Our people are looking for new voices, new ideas, and new leaders.” North Korea needs a new leader, one who is different from the Kim line of dictators. There is an urgent need for a change in leadership that prioritizes the lives and livelihoods of the North Korean people.

We urgently need a new way of thinking about the Korean Peninsula and reunification. Liberal democracy based on constitutional values is the only way to end the inter-Korean division. South Korea’s general election in April 2024 will be a pivotal point in determining the fate of the Korean Peninsula. The election will be an opportunity to decide our future.

Translated by Matthew Eteuati, Jr. Edited by Robert Lauler.

Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

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