After the United Nations imposed stronger sanctions on North Korea last month, Pyongyang began all kinds of provocations against the U.S. and South Korea. The style and contents of North Korea’s invectives and provocations are more vicious but very familiar to us.

If we examine the demands North Korea has been making since negotiations on denuclearization began in 1993, we can find a peaceful solution to the problem. During the six-party talks, the North Korean delegation said that it would rather give up the negotiations and go nuclear whenever the U.S. and South Korea refused to accept its demands. Since the negations became deadlocked over the detailed implementation process according to the Sept. 19, 2005 Joint Statement, North Korea has officially declared that it has no intention to denuclearize itself and has designated it as a nuclear power.

The demands North Korea has consistently made of the U.S. are: the normalization of relations between the two countries; the end of all U.S. and U.N. sanctions against North Korea; a complete denuclearization of South Korea including the withdrawal of its nuclear umbrella and guarantee against first use of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula; a peace treaty between the two countries; and abandonment of any missile defense program and the Proliferation Security Initiative against North Korea.

Each side blames the other side for the failure of the six-party talks: North Korea claims that through the negotiations, it has found out that the U.S. has no willingness to abandon its hostile policy toward it, while the U.S. maintains that North Korea has had no intention of giving up its nuclear programs from the beginning and has used the negotiations to buy time to perfect its nuclear programs. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the current stalemate both sides stick to the same positions: North Korea demands that the U.S. promise to meet its conditions before a new round of negotiations, and the U.S. demands that North Korea first promise its denuclearization before they come to the negotiating table.

Under the circumstances, the most realistic and effective solution should be found on the basis of what a nuclear North Korea means to each of the parties directly concerned: South Korea, the U.S., North Korea and China.

For South Korea, it is absolutely unacceptable because North Korea will use its nuclear weapons as a tool for intimidation not only in inter-Korean relations but also in U.S.-North Korea relations and nullify South Korea’s self-defense capabilities. In the case of the U.S., it will weaken substantially the combined military forces of the ROK-U.S. alliance, but more importantly it will make the U.S. efforts to protect the existing international nuclear order meaningless. Moreover, the U.S. believes that the nuclearization of North Korea is most likely to justify the nuclearization of South Korea and Japan and to ultimately overturn the existing stability in Northeast Asia.

The leadership of North Korea firmly believes that nuclear weapons are the best and cheapest means to defend itself against the ROK-U.S. combined military forces. China has taken a kind of neutral position on the issue since it believes that the protection of the existing North Korean regime is the most urgent task because its collapse through explosion or implosion is sure to undermine peace and security in Northeast Asia and disturb its own security.

But now all the parties are beginning to reflect on their present positions. The Chinese government has reportedly suggested to North Korea a “grand bargain” with the U.S.: the U.S., Japan and South Korea recognize and normalize relations with North Korea in exchange for the denuclearization of North Korea.

In the U.S. some experts on the North Korean nuclear issue suggest that the U.S. needs to consider a strategy of three no’s (no more bombs, no better bombs and no export of bombs) as a precondition for nuclear negotiations with North Korea. Others suggest that to induce China to abandon its protective policy toward North Korea, the U.S. should promise China that the it would not turn a unified Korea into its frontline against China and would not move its troops to the present territory of North Korea. Even in South Korea the voice for a continued dialogue grows stronger than before amid the current crisis situation.

In view of the above development, the U.S. and South Korea need a paradigm shift in their strategies toward North Korea.

Until now, the nuclear talks have focused on the exchange between the denuclearization of North Korea on the one hand and economic compensations and the normalization of relations on the other. From now on, bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea should be held, and the talks should focus on the exchange between the denuclearization of North Korea on the one hand and military compensations and the normalization of relations on the other.

The military compensations should include the U.S. withdrawal of its nuclear umbrella and first use of nuclear weapons strategy, the PSI, and the missile defense against North Korea. If North Korea agrees to this proposal, the U.S. should ask the U.N. to lift its sanctions against North Korea. All these measures are to deprive North Korea of its rationale for its nuclear programs.

To induce China to abandon its overprotective policy toward North Korea, the U.S. should consider measures to relieve China’s fear of its “containment” policy including the MD system, the strategic inflexibility, and the U.S.-Japan joint actions in the situations in the surrounding areas against China.

If North Korea still refuses to abandon its nuclear weapons, no country will tolerate it. 

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. ― Ed.