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North Korea seeks to pave the way for sanctions relief.
As we head to a new round of talks between the United States and North Korea this year, with an upcoming visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang and possibly a second summit between the leaders of the two countries, more and more evidence indicates that what Pyongyang is looking for above all – beyond the declaration of end of the Korean War and beyond the additional restrictions imposed on US-South-South military engagements- Korean – lightening penalties.
The first evidence to support this claim came during the weekend, when North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly. United. Ri does not run North Korea's politics, but was in New York as the regime's first envoy. Before gathering world leaders and foreign ministers, he attacked unilateral UN sanctions against his country:
The United Nations Security Commission has submitted numerous "sanctions resolutions" outlining our nuclear tests and rocket test launches. But even today, when a whole year has passed since such tests were stopped, even a word in these "resolutions" remains unchanged to say nothing of being totally suppressed or relaxed.
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Ri was talking just weeks after Kim organized a remarkably silent military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea. Unlike the previous parades in February 2018 and April 2017, it did not include any nuclear capacity system. According to Ri, the general restraint of North Korea this year would have deserved a relaxation of international sanctions. North Korea is not alone in this situation; Beijing and Moscow, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, have expressed support for the limited sanctions easing designed to positively reinforce North Korea.
In addition to Ri's speech, the Korean central news agency issued an important comment on Tuesday. This commentary put aside, among other things, a proposal that had been advanced by several US and South Korean experts: that the United States agree to go ahead with a declaration to end the Korean War in exchange for a North Korean declaration of its nuclear inventory. (I've been exploring some of the difficulties of an inventory here for NKPro.) This "declaration for statement" proposal has few takers in Pyongyang, it seems.
According to the commentary, the end-of-war declaration is considered in North Korea as completely separate from the denuclearization track in the negotiations. "The question of the declaration of the end of the war should have been solved half a century ago," notes the comment. "It is also the most fundamental and fundamental process for the establishment of the new DPRK-U.S. mechanisms of peace and peace on the Korean peninsula, to which the United States was also attached. "
In this reading, North Korea suggests that the commitments made by US President Donald J. Trump vis-à-vis Kim in Singapore foreshadow the declaration of end of war. With respect to the denuclearization and "corresponding measures" of the United States, most recently mentioned in the inter-Korean declaration of 19 September, the commentary again suggests that sanctions are the key to enabling further progress, including potential actions. on North Korean nuclear sites, including facilities in Yongbyon:
The DPRK is taking substantial and crucial steps to implement the joint declaration made to the DPRK-US. But the United States is still trying to control somebody by resorting to sanctions, continually repeating the story of escalating pressure on sanctions imposed on the DPRK.
As an accompaniment to the above observations, consider that South Korea has also become aware of the inadmissibility of the declaration-for-declaration approach. As the Washington Post According to reports, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has expressed reservations about the idea. (She is not the first member of the government of South Korean President Moon Jae-in to express reservations about a North Korean inventory statement.)
"What North Korea has said is that they will permanently dismantle their nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, which represents a very large part of their nuclear program," Kang said at a meeting. a discussion at the South Korean Mission to the United Nations, according to the Post. "If they do it in exchange for the corresponding US measures, such as the end-of-war declaration, I think it's a huge step forward for denuclearization."
This creates another potential exchange, in which the United States accepts a declaration to end the Korean War and North Korea puts Yongbyon on the table. This in itself is different from the exchange proposed by North Korea, but also leaves out the question of inventory reporting. It is understandable that South Korea is not yet calling for sanctions relief. (Seoul has limited leverage to call for sanctions relief, though Moon may privately accommodate relief to allow its inter-Korean economic program to work.)
Pending the imminent return of Pompeo to Pyongyang – his fourth trip – it is unlikely that we would witness a fundamental recalibration of American objectives. The State Department has made it clear that it continues to see that "maximum pressure" remains in place until further denuclearization concessions emerge. What should be clearer is that the "declaration for declaration" seems to be the wrong approach to move North Korea forward on the issue of denuclearization at the moment.
