Bosworth Says
Denuclearization of N. Korea Should Not Be Immediate Goal
NK News. 9/20/12 By
Jennifer Chang
Stephen W. Bosworth,
the former U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Policy and former U.S. Ambassador
to South Korea, said today that North Korea policy should change direction,
with a new focus emphasizing regional stability as the immediate goal.
Speaking to foreign
journalists in Seoul as a private citizen, Bosworth explained that after
upcoming elections in the United States and South Korea there should be a
cautious study of how Pyongyang policy should be formulated. “North Korea’s
development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has presented a serious
threat to the policy of deterrence,” Bosworth said. And he pointed out that
“formal diplomacy with regard to North Korea among the U.S. and countries in
the Northeast Asia region has come to an abrupt halt after Pyongyang’s failed
missile test in mid-April in violation of an agreement it had reached with the
U.S. just weeks before on February 29th.”
On formulating North
Korea policy after leadership transitions in the U.S. and ROK the former envoy
said, “The first question the U.S. and its allies need to tackle is whether to
continue trying to engage Pyongyang.” They also need to ask themselves, “What
should our goal be in dealing with North Korea? I believe that their aim should
be stability on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia instead of what it has
been until now – bringing about CVID, or complete, verifiable and irreversible
dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear programs – which has also been the
purpose of the six-nation talks” on denuclearizing North Korea.
Remarking that
Pyongyang now has a highly-enriched uranium nuclear program, Bosworth said that
CVID would no longer be achievable in his opinion, and should therefore no
longer be the goal of the U.S. and its allies in their policy toward North
Korea. “Due to the nature of that technology, it would be almost impossible to
verify North Korea’s compliance with any ban on its enriched uranium
production. In contrast to the plutonium program, the enrichment program can be
dispersed across the country and it is very difficult to detect. So while we
cannot give up the long term of denuclearizing North Korea, I think it is
unrealistic to try to negotiate an agreement ending its nuclear weapons program
in the short and medium term,” he said.
According to Bosworth,
instead, “Our goal should be to limit the risk of North Korea’s nuclear weapons
program in the short and mid-term, including creating a standstill situation
where the North cannot carry out any more nuclear tests. But at the same time,
we need to work on other critical issues affecting the Korean Peninsula by, for
instance, beginning the process of replacing the 1953 armistice that ended with
the Korean War with a stable, durable and balanced peace agreement. We should
try to construct an interlocking network of undertakings within Northeast Asia
with which North Korea could be a part from which they would receive
substantial benefits, both economic and political. By doing this, I think we
can get a promise from Pyongyang not to engage in any more nuclear testing.”
Extracting such a
promise from North Korea would be difficult, he admitted, and would need close
coordination between America and South Korea. “We will have to be patient, and
be willing to work closely between ourselves and with the other countries in
the region to create a policy that can be sustained for several years. But
simply waiting for North Korea to change or collapse, or waiting for China to
solve the problem, will not, in my view, resolve the situation,” said Bosworth.
The former U.S. point
man on North Korea policy also said he wished to summarize his views by saying
that “The key, in my view, to managing the threats posed by North Korea is that
South Korea and the U.S. must continue to work closely together.” “And we must
have a credible deterrence in place to make sure that there is no military
adventurism on the part of Pyongyang. I also realize there is a good deal of
skepticism about our ability to deal with North Korea through diplomacy – a
skepticism that was reinforced by the collapse of the February 29th agreement,”
according to Bosworth.
In response to a
reporter’s question asking whether he thought the agreement between North Korea
and Iran escalates the North Korean threat and whether he agreed with President
George W. Bush that Pyongyang and Teheran form an ‘axis of evil,’ Bosworth said
he was “not a great fan of the axis of evil concept.” However, he added that he
thought both countries were “difficult and dangerous problems” the
international community was obligated to deal with, although he was “not sure
there was enough commonality between them to enable the world to deal with them
at the same time.”
Finally, another
correspondent asked Bosworth if starting on drafting a peace treaty would be
helped by recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power. “I would not advocate
recognizing the North as a nuclear state. The difference between having the
power to produce nuclear explosions and being declaring a nuclear weapons state
is quite large. And our ultimate goal should be the elimination of nuclear weapons
on the Korean Peninsula.”
