People see a tv broadcast revealing a file picture of a North Korean rocket launch at the Seoul Railway Station on October 28, 2022 in Seoul, SouthKorea North Korea fired 2 short-range ballistic rockets (SRBMs) towards the East Sea on Friday, the South Korean armed force stated, as Seoul’s significant military workout waned.
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The United States stated on Friday its policy towards North Korea had actually not altered after a senior U.S. authorities accountable for nuclear policy raised some eyebrows by stating Washington would want to take part in arms-control talks with Pyongyang.
Some professionals argue that acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, something Pyongyang looks for, is a requirement for such talks. But Washington has long argued that the North Korean nuclear program is unlawful and based on United Nations sanctions.
Bonnie Jenkins, State Department under secretary for arms control, was asked at a Washington nuclear conference on Thursday at which point North Korea need to be dealt with as an arms-control issue.
“If they would have a conversation with us … arms control can always be an option if you have two willing countries willing to sit down at the table and talk,” she responded.
“And not just arms control, but risk reduction – everything that leads up to a traditional arms-control treaty and all the different aspects of arms control that we can have with them. We’ve made it very clear to the DPRK … that we’re ready to talk to them – we have no pre-conditions,” she stated, describing North Korea by the initials of its main name.
Referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, she included: “If he picked up the phone and said, ‘I want to talk about arms control,’ we’re not going to say no. I think, if anything, we would want to explore what that means.”
The United States and its allies are worried that North Korea might will resume a-bomb screening for the very first time given that 2017, something that would be extremely unwanted to the Biden administration ahead of mid-term elections early next month. North Korea has actually declined U.S. contacts us to go back to talks.
Asked about Jenkins’ remark, State Department representative Ned Price stated: “I want to be very clear about this. There has been no change to U.S. policy.”
Price stated U.S. policy stayed “the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” while including, “we continue to be open to diplomacy with the DPRK, we continue to reach out to the DPRK, we’re committed to pursuing a diplomatic approach. We’re prepared to meet without preconditions and we call on the DPRK to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy.”
‘Kim Jong Un’s trap’
Speaking on Friday at the exact same nuclear policy conference Jenkins resolved, Alexandra Bell, another senior State Department arms-control authorities, likewise worried there was no modification in U.S. policy.
Asked if it was time to accept North Korea as a nuclear state, she responded: “Wording aside, we are committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We do not accept North Korea with that status. But we are interested in having a conversation with the North Koreans.”
Daniel Russel, the leading U.S. diplomat for East Asia under then-President Barack Obama and now with the Asia Society, informed Reuters Jenkins had “fallen straight into Kim Jong Un’s trap” with her remarks.
“Suggesting that North Korea only has to agree to have a conversation with the U.S. about arms control and risk reduction is a terrible mistake, because it moves the issue from North Korea’s right to possess nuclear weapons to the question of how many it should have and how they are used,” he stated.
“Kim would love nothing better than to push his risk reduction agenda — the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea.”
Other professionals soft-pedaled Jenkins’ remarks.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the U.S.-based Arms Control Association, stated she was not making a declaration acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear weapons state under the global Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“She was acknowledging, as other officials in other administrations have, that North Korea does have nuclear weapons, but in violation of its commitments under the NPT not to pursue nuclear weapons,” he informed Reuters.
Kimball and Toby Dalton, a nuclear professional at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which hosted the nuclear conference, stated they did not see official acknowledgment as a nuclear-armed state as a requirement for arms-control talks. Dalton stated Jenkins appeared basically to be reiterating the U.S. position that it wanted to speak to Pyongyang without prerequisites.
