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Washington is facing increasing pressure from China, Russia and South Korea, as well as humanitarian groups, to soften sanctions against North Korea, the denuclearization talks led by Trump administration with Pyongyang having posed problem.
Washington's talks with Pyongyang were blocked last week when North Korea abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as the United States tried to maintain the sanctions while engaging in diplomatic negotiations with the United States. the country.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in should address the issue of easing North Korean sanctions when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the meeting scheduled for Saturday on the sidelines of the Asia Economic Cooperation Summit -Pacific (APEC) in Papua New Guinea as an attempt to restart the stagnant denuclearization talks.
On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence said President Donald Trump should ask Xi to continue to apply sanctions to North Korea when he meets with him later this month at the GATS meeting. 20 in Buenos Aires.
The sanctions have been lightened?
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its annual report released this week that China appeared to have facilitated the enforcement of sanctions against North Korea.
Last week, US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, rejected Russia's request to relax sanctions against North Korea at a closed meeting of the US Security Council organized by Russia.
Haley said that North Korea still had "their facilities, they still have not allowed inspectors to go inspect nuclear facilities or ballistic missile facilities." And as long as that happens, we have to stay the course. "
Calls for relief from sanctions against North Korea also come from humanitarian groups, an initiative that could lead China, Russia and South Korea to put pressure on the United States, said Ken Gause, director of the group. international affairs.
In October, a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in the United States sent a letter to Trump asking him to "change [the U.S.] sanctions regulation "and the lifting of the travel ban imposed on North Korea" to allow the rapid delivery of humanitarian aid and the commitment of other NGOs With the country.
Also in October, the United Nations Sanctions Committee for North Korea granted the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) a partial exemption from the sanctions imposed on North Korea, allowing it to "engage in humanitarian activities" and "allow the shipment of articles to [North Korea]. "
In response to the US sanctions exemption, a State Department official said in an email to the Korean VOA service earlier this week, "We continue to support the vital help needed by vulnerable people. [North Korean] citizens to fight against transnational threats. "
Concrete steps
Experts warn that Washington should not relax the sanctions imposed on North Korea until it has taken concrete steps towards denuclearization.
"It would be premature to ease sanctions at this stage," said Troy Stangarone, senior director of the Korea Economic Institute. "North Korea has yet to denuclearize its nuclear program or take concrete steps to dismantle it."
William Newcomb, a former US Treasury official and member of the UN Security Council's North Korea Group of Experts, said North Korea needed to take a number of essential steps towards denuclearization before any sanctions could be imposed. be lifted.
"There are a number of actions [North Korea] could pledge to demonstrate a commitment to getting rid of [weapons of mass destruction] and prohibit missile capability, such as the removal of proliferation activities and the provision of detailed and verifiable information about programs and locations, "said Newcomb. "If such measures were taken, then it would be appropriate to re-examine certain measures."
William Brown, a former US intelligence chief and professor at Georgetown University, who focuses on the North Korean economy, said suspending the production of fissile nuclear material was the first essential step for North Korea. had to cross to achieve a complete denuclearization that would lift the sanctions.
"More general trade and financial restrictions should remain in place until Pyongyang is moving towards a permanent reduction and ultimate elimination of its nuclear weapons," said Brown.
Sanctions "back"
Robert Manning, senior Atlantic Council official, said: "The United States may suspend certain sanctions (to be negotiated) in exchange for agreed milestones of denuclearization."
Mr. Manning continued, "This could be achieved by obtaining a new UN Security Council resolution that provides for" immediate "sanctions if North Korea does not comply." "Snap back" refers to the reinstatement of sanctions lifted if North Korea did not reach its denuclearization agreements. .
Gause, of the international affairs group, said he thought Washington would only lighten the sanctions if it felt the sanctions were ineffective.
"The United States will relax the sanctions once the United States has agreed that sanctions do not really work on North Korea," he said.
Jonathan Schanzer, a former treasury official and currently vice-president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said: "The key to success, to the extent possible, is to keep up the pressure on sanctions while simultaneously negotiating."
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Pence said that a second summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, tentatively scheduled for the beginning of next year, will be the place where a "verifiable plan" of disclosure Nuclear sites must be reached.
"I think it will be absolutely imperative at this next summit that we develop a plan to identify all the weapons in question, to identify all the development sites, thus allowing the site inspection and plan to dismantle nuclear weapons, "said Pence. I said.
