North Korea is Willing to Negotiate with US
March 15, 2018
North Korea is now willing to negotiate conditions with the United States, according to a report from South Korea, in a development that followed unprecedented meetings in Pyongyang.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also has agreed to refrain from conducting nuclear and missile tests while engaging in dialogue with South Korea, Seoul’s national security chief Chung Eui-yong said. He stated that PyongYang is willing to engage “in an open-ended dialogue to discuss the issue of denuclearization and to normalize relations with North Korea.”
The Asian nation clarified that it had no reason to retain nuclear weapons if “the military threat to North Korea is resolved” and the country’s security can be guaranteed, Chung added.
Kim Yong-chol, a vice chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, expressed that willingness when he met with Moon shortly before the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Moon’s office said.
This event is surprising, since last year the communist country declared that it could easily wipe the US off the surface of the planet. However, Moon’s office did not reveal whether North Korea had attached any preconditions for starting talks with the United States like the suspension of joint South Korea-United States military exercises, which it calls a rehearsal for invasion. The North threatened the United States with nuclear attacks just a few weeks ago.
These developments have been confirmed:
- An official with deep knowledge of North Korea said Kim wants the world to know he has a strategy and “he’s the sheriff in town” who sets the rules for his government’s interests.
- US President Donald Trump said he believes North Korea is “sincere” in its peace talks with South Korea.
- The US will move forward on joint military exercises with South Korea, an administration official said.
- Moon will meet for a summit at the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas in April, Chung said.
- The two sides will open a hotline so the leaders could communicate directly with each other, according to Chung.
On Friday, Washington announced harsh new sanctions against North Korea, and President Trump alluded to the threat of military action, saying, “If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go Phase 2.”
On Sunday, North Korea called the news sanctions an “act of war.” Later on Sunday the White House said in a statement that “denuclearization must be the result of any dialogue with North Korea.”
American officials and some analysts suspect that North Korea was creating an inter-Korean thaw to soften its image and weaken international sanctions. But Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, says that North Korea’s strategy is not to avoid sanctions but to get the United States to accept it as a nuclear weapons state in return for a freeze on its nuclear program.
Though surprising, the statements from North Korea aren’t a complete U-turn. Pyongyang has long maintained its development of nuclear weapons is a response to what it calls the US “hostile policy” toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the country is officially known.
“To some extent, this is a reiteration of something the North Koreans have said, that Kim Jong Un has said. But context and timing matters, and this opens up the opportunity for more diplomacy,” said John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Relations in Seoul.
Eastvale resident Tony Wang expresses his thoughts on the matter. “It’s a good thing they want to talk and not go to war,” he says. “If we do go to war, many people will die.”
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