Transcripts For CSPAN3 CSIS Forum On U.S.-South Korea Relati

CSPAN3 CSIS Forum On U.S.-South Korea Relations July 14, 2024

Some conditions for peace, then we can expect that at some point we can realize we can achieve denuclearization. I think on this particular subject we can come back later. After that, we have dr. Paik. Thank you, chair. Id like to talk about the denuclearization process, which is critical to the peace building process on the Korean Peninsula. We had previously two Nuclear Crisis in Korean Peninsula. The first one was in 1992, and we had between the United States and dprk after that. And by the framework the north Korean Nuclear program had frozen for several years. But second Nuclear Crisis had come because of the uranium enrichment facilitys closure. And at the time there was party talks but this kind of effort ended significant progress towards the denuclearization. After 15 years, in 2017, dprk conducted its last nuclear test, confirming its Nuclear Capability. And International Community once again chose to sit at the negotiation table with the dprk, and we realized that the Current Situation is totally different from the first or second Nuclear Crisis, because north korea is almost complete their Nuclear Programs. And its its not possible just to simply reverse the situation. But from the first u. S. Dprk summit we had a little hope that it might be solved without any detailed plan or procedure, but after the second summit between the United States and dprk we find out that its not going to be work and we need more detailed and planned procedure for the dprks denuclearization. From the two summit we realize that there is a huge discrepancy between the concept of denuclearization between the United States and dprk. For the United States, the concept of denuclearization is just denuclearization itself as it is. But for the dprk, it seems that its just freezing of detectable activities or dismantling of symbolic facilities. And this is totally from the denuclearization what we know. So because of this huge discrepancy, we cannot solve everything at once. We should draw the bottom line and we should prepare every calculation. So we have to think about that, what is a lot for the United States. Last month john bolton mentioned that the president is determined that neither iran nor north korea will get deliverable Nuclear Weapons. So if its the bottom line for the United States, we are a little bit worried about the term deliverable, because currently north korea doesnt have deliverable Nuclear Weapons towards the United States. But for the south korea, north korea already has deliverable Nuclear Weapons. So in the negotiation process, consideration about how much south korea can tolerate about the North Koreans Nuclear Weapon should be a very should be considering very importantly. And another thing we should think about is what north korea really wants for denuclearization. And what is the most urgent thing for north korea. The urgent thing is the economic for north korea. But the important thing for the north korea is keeping their Nuclear Capability. So we have to think about it, can economy overcome the importance of having Nuclear Capability for dprk. How much tradeoff are they ready for at the negotiation . And the other thing is, the International Communitys acceptance. We have our european colleague here, and we have to think about that, the International Community is ready for accept another israel or another iran or maybe are we ready for having another three or four dprks in the near future . If International Community is not ready for accepting these kind of conditions, then we have to first dprk to agree to the denuclearization concept. And if dprk agree to accept the denuclearization concept, then dprk should commit its intention towards denuclearization. It should confirm that there is no further weapons or missile test and it should confirm there have been no production of materials. Then commitment for the inspection, dismantlement of weapons, removal of materials and destruction of facilities should follow. Even with the plan, without the immediate implementation. However, this is going to be very a long process and its going to be very painful. Because the dprks Nuclear Program has been lasting for several decades and their capability is very diversified. They have brand new production facilities, and for the uranium alone, they have refining facilities, enrichment facilities and have lots of uranium related facilities like rights, production facilities and they have already have some capability of producing the centrifuges. For the plutonium production they have reactors to make the fuels also they have the process plant and the chemical production plants for the reprocessing. And for the hydrogen capability, they have a lithium production or treating Production Facility inside their land. So we have to identify all those facilities and have to verify if its really a dismantled or if its really disabled for the denuclearization. So this kind of process would be very long and we have a case of south africa and for south africa, it took about two years. And they have four Years Nuclear development program. And they had only primitive uranium Nuclear Weapons. But for the north korea, theyre capability is very diversified and we have to make inspection over hundreds of facilities and we have to conduct maybe thousands of interviews and documentedati documentation reviews and because north korea is closed associa society, i wonder if they can allow their people get interviews by experts from the outside world. So we have to cautiously plan or design the denuclearization process and its going to be a very difficult thing. But even its going to be a very long and painful process we have to move onto the denuclearization of north korea. And the key goal of negotiation is reducing tension on Korean Peninsula and we have to ensure elimination of Nuclear Program of dprk. And the approaches of simple maintaining dialogue or negotiation momentum should be avoided because its going to be a long process. And we have to always empathize the importance of the denuclearization and we have to put empathize about the u. S. Alliance and have to really get we have the same concept and common interest between the u. S. And the republic of korea. I will stop there. Thank you very much. Pointing out that there is tthe discrepancies or diver jen sis of the concepts of denuclearization. That denuclearization process would be very difficult, long, and quite complicated one. So now dr. Su natari. Good afternoon. I counted im the ninth person out of two panels talking about north korea. So hopefully youll get through the jet leg and ill summarize quickly and answer your question on where we think we are and where were headed. I think no matter what your view is on u. S. north korea policy, since the singapore summit, its been a little over a year. We have to agree that it was disappointing outcome, right . This was not what we thought, even with the best of hopes. And we dont even have the basic agreedupon definition on denuclearization right now as of today after a year of after a year has passed. That said, the first Panel Brought this point up. We are seeing some positive momentum, were seeing some positive signal, so thats a good thing. We have at least first communication between the two leaders since hanoi, beautiful letter, excellent letter. And we not only that, i think not only they have exchanged letters, kim jongun has sent his sister to pan moon on, meeting with the south korean officials, so all of this is a positive sign. I think kim did say last week that he would be more patient or at least be patient until the end of the year. So with these overtures to washington, kim at the moment obviously is pursuing a diplomatic strategy thats based a combination of charm and coercion in order to create a new life into the stalled negotiations. North koreas testing of the short range missiles since hanoi are not to scrap the talks, but obviously its designed to sort of project strength at home and designed to pressure washington to return to negotiations. To build up leverage and reset the terms of the negotiations. So kim was careful to launch short range missiles, not intermediate or Intercontinental Missiles. But obviously the message kim was trying to send to trump is north korea can escalate so u. S. Should, enough is enough, back down, come back to negotiation in terms thats favorable to north korea. So contrary to what she said, she said this ominously and hastily arranged press meeting, briefing, a midnight press briefing after trump took off in hanoi, contrary to that, what she said kim has not lost the will to continue the dialogue with the United States. Kim does want to separate President Trump from his advi advise advisers, thats clear. He does want to appeal directly to President Trump. But he nonetheless wants to deal with President Trump and still a path to engagement of dialogue is open and thats a positive thing. Obviously weve seen President Trump on his part is also interested in negotiations. This is why he played down the short range missiles, directly contradicting his own National Security advisor, and Prime Minister abe in tokyo. And he wanted to he said hes open to a third summit and so on. So that, all of it i think is positive. So what we have at the moment are, we have both north korea missile, Intercontinental Missile testing. We have a freeze on that. At the same time we have a freeze on u. S. south korea joint military exercises. Second we have exchange of these letters, theyre both speaking warmly of each other and we have returned to the dark days of 2017 with the fire and fury and all of it. So where are we with that . So i do think, given all of this, i agree with the first panel and interim deal is possible. I think thats certainly possible. In hanoi, the United States was reportedly ready to grant a peace declaration to north korea, open offices with north korea, so all of that remain in play. Those concessions were ready to be given but not given only because i think it was kims overreach. I think it was kims overreach of demanding so much of extensions to be lifted. But all of this still could be forthcoming in the future. Before the end of the year, obviously two scenarios are possible. First scenarios we talked about today, the interim deal scenario, third trump kim summit. I think its going to be a small deal. I dont think its going to be a big deal to be honest with you. Its still going to be a small deal since both leaders want it to happen. The second is a modeling through scenario without a return to dialogue. We have to be careful to all say, hey, do you all think were going to have a summit and everybody raised their hand. We should be careful because were dealing with an unpredictable u. S. President and one thing he likes to do is prove everybody wrong. So when all the pundits said he was going to give in to bad deal in hanoi, he proved us wrong. If we want a third summit maybe we should say we dont predict that. So i do think it is possible, also, that you know, that we go through for some time. I dont think kim jongun will return i dont think he will break the soft moratorium he has on tests because he did say he would give trump until the end of the year. He told president xi he would be patient until the end of the year. So if the first scenario unfolds and i think that kim could offer something on the negotiating table, that we dont know what exactly that is. Maybe inspect other suspected facility. I dont think kim will necessarily agree to a time line or a road map to advance a single declaration. I think thats expecting too much. I do not think hes going to give a declaration of Nuclear Missile arsenal or stock pile, but he could offer a young gun plus because from kims perspective, his calculation could be its still worth it to him because he gets to keep his Nuclear Weapons and missiles. And this is obviously has to be for some sanctions relief. But again, i am concerned about not necessarily getting there, because, particularly because if the Trump Administration does not budge on sanctions. And right now we do have a Bipartisan Legislation that was just introduced recently, under new sanctions they would cut off from the u. S. Banking system any person or entity doing business with north korea and the senate is expected to approve that. This is an amendment to the senates annual defense bill. So my point is, there is a sort of also momentum towards not lifting sanctions. So again i think we have to be careful, i think these two scenarios are possible, or it depends on President Trump and how much he wants to have that third summit. So if we dont have the first possibility, option 1, i think kim has to resort to then plan b, which is a graduated escalati escalation, and i think we have to prepare for that. In that second scenario what that means is kim has to escalate, not to violate the moratorium he has, but he can certainly escalate. He can do for example a Medium Range Missile test over japan to continue to pressure the Trump Administration if we dont move on the sanctions front. So and then what well have is a crescendo statements closer to the end of the year, again which scenario will prevail will depend on President Trump and the two leaders. One last comment on the peace building process on the Korean Peninsula. I think the main difficulty would be time line and sequencing of that. The challenge is that the necessary condition for peace, as identified by u. S. And the United States, is right now unacceptable to north korea. Whether its verifiable denuclearization, forward deployed, north Korean Forces along the dnc, its not what the North Koreans want. But the reverse is true as well. What the North Koreans demand are not necessarily what were ready to give. Weve suspended the u. S. Military exercises but were not ready to give relaxation of sanctions. And not ready to give u. S. Sanctions and call forces down. I think thats the difficult ahead for us. Thank you. Yeah. For the full panel, just summarizing their perspective what has happened and where we are and what we can expect from here. It seems what weve seen and shurnc experienced in hanoi and early perspectives. It takes four months to settle down. Just now in the middle of june we see some activities resuming, exchange of letters, beautiful letters between trump and chairman kim and visits to pyongyang. Next week, we will see President Trump in seoul. Again, have we seen what has been talked about and discussed or happened in hanoi received, a lot more work still we need to do. To move forward from here, i can see what is most urgently needed or importantly needed is to nato with a cap between the approaches, between two sides. So far, the major emphasis on the north korean side is the phased approach and suggested in hanoi and refused by the United States and asking the United States to reconsider by the end of this year. On the north korean side is the phased approach is the basic position. On the international side, the united side then what we can keep reseb resecting this phase by phase approach. There shouldnt be discussions between two governments. At the same time, on this kind of level we may need some further exploration. How do on this panel your ideas on this issue . Some differences between two approach, one phased one . In the mornings, in the morning session, the first session, actually, the need to understand small deal versus big deal, particular small in the context of big deal. What happened in singapore was a big deal, comprehensive, in other words, bring all the issues and concerns from both sides and decide on how to giveandtake those important items in the context of big deal. A small deal is the process in the context of big deal. In that regard. What has to be done to narrow the gap, which was revealed in hanoi. I think, again, as i said in my presentation, there is a need to have a full account what happened, between the two negotiators, precise as well. As a result of osaka hanoi, President Trumps visit to south korea and the summit talks that already happened between china and north korea and exchange of leaders. There is amp hopes for resuming i do logs and negotiations between the resuming dialogues between north korea. And negotiations first is a natural process of reaching up to summit talks. So, were

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