Experts on the North Korean nuclear issue have proposed that old strategies be revisited and diverse methods employed to improve the prospects for eventually achieving the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.<\/p>\n
At the Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ \u2018Nuclear Conference 2011\u2019, experts Professor Jun Bong Geun, Director of Center for Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS), and Dr. Ariel E. Levite of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace came together for a discussion entitled \u2018Sanctions and Strategies for Preventing a Nuclear North Korea\u2019. <\/p>\n
Both speakers agreed on the need to open minds on strategies to engage North Korea and pursue denuclearization. Freshly reinvigorated methods could include the \u2018Grand Bargain\u2019 initiative proposed by Lee Myung Bak, \u2018five-party consultations\u2019 once proposed by the South Korean government, and engaging North Korea through multiple channels (official and unofficial), as well as separating denuclearization from nuclear safety issues.<\/p>\n
Professor Jun particularly emphasized the importance of holding five-party talks involving China, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States, to consult and coordinate on the different desires and expectations of each country.<\/p>\n
He explained, \u201cIn the past, there were a number of instances when the Six-Party Talks process were delayed and stalled due to the divergent positions of the five parties, and North Korea took advantage of such differences and refused to fulfill its obligations. In numerical terms, one five-party meeting could easily replace 20 bilateral meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to ask and confirm among the five of us what we want from North Korea, what we are ready to give to North Korea, and what we can accept from it, so that we may be successful in our nuclear diplomacy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Dr. Levite agreed on the need to set interim objectives for the present, with denuclearization as the ultimate goal, seeing as it is unlikely that North Korea would willingly give up all of its nuclear weapons in the near term. Instead, he asserted that the first order of business ought to be preventing the North\u2019s nuclear capability from triggering a bigger crisis on or beyond the Korean peninsula, while the second priority should be \u201cto gradually cap and try to reorient the DPRK nuclear program, diverting it into less troublesome directions\u201d.<\/p>\n
He therefore advocated engaging North Korea through both formal and informal channels while maintaining a consistent attitude, saying, \u201cWe need to be patient, to lower our expectations about what we can accomplish yet try at the same time with vigor and be prepared for shocks. At the end of the day, we need to launch a discussion that is disarmament-oriented, generic in nature, and think about what we would be willing to accept from North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Experts on the North Korean nuclear issue have proposed that old strategies be revisited and diverse methods employed to improve the prospects for eventually achieving the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. At the Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ \u2018Nuclear Conference 2011\u2019, experts Professor Jun Bong Geun, Director of Center for Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":17087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n