hankyoreh

participants engaged in dialogue on the future of peace on the Korean Peninsula and the possibility of a security cooperative in Northeast Asia.

The Fourth 2008 Hankyoreh-Busan International Symposium, an annual conference on the subject of peace in Northeast Asia organized by the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture, was held on November 20 at the Novotel Ambassador Hotel in Busan. Experts and scholars in the fields of diplomacy and security participating in this year’s symposium seemed to agree that the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is likely to exercise a “comprehensive approach” to his North Korea policy similar to that employed by the Clinton administration. There was agreement that this could alter the security framework on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia and go beyond the narrow format of diplomatic efforts that have been employed up to this point. With the incoming Obama administration expected to fundamentally change U.S. policy on North Korea, some experts expressed the concern that South Korea and the United States could experience friction over their policy differences on the North.

Donald Gross, a former senior adviser to the Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, said, “The best way for the U.S. to achieve its strategic goals for the Korean Peninsula is to agree to replace the cease-fire treaty by taking a comprehensive settlement of the issue, including the denuclearization of North Korea.”

In his paper “Peace and Security in South Korea and Northeast Asia,” Gross said the settlement could include: negotiations on the North Korean nuclear standoff, a peace agreement among South Korea, North Korea, the United States and China to replace the cease-fire treaty, normalization of North Korea-U.S. relations, military talks among South Korea, North Korea and the United States to build military trust on the Korean Peninsula, the establishment of a multilateral security cooperative in Northeast Asia and agreements between South Korea and North Korea as well as North Korea and Japan. Simultaneous implementation of these efforts would give the United States a great amount of diplomatic leverage through which to meet its strategic goals in the region and demonstrate the strategic value of pursuing common diplomatic goals with an emerging China, Gross said.

Leon Sigal, the director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, echoed the view that Obama would take an “active and comprehensive approach” to North Korea. Sigal said the incoming Obama administration needs to present gradual and comprehensive measures in a give-and-take relationship with the North. In exchange, North Korea should fall into step with the United States by removing its nuclear weapons program, Sigal said.

Sigal presented his ideas on the “comprehensive approach.” First, the United States and North Korea, with South Korea and China, would officially pledge to sign a peace agreement when the North has completed the process of denuclearization. Second, North Korea would shut down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and implement a verification protocol in the process of normalizing diplomatic relations with the United States. Third, when the North abandons its nuclear program, the United States would begin to initiate economic cooperation projects and provide aid for the construction of a conventional power plant in North Korea. The United States would complete construction of the plant and sign a peace agreement when North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons and atomic materials completely. This kind of approach would give the United States leverage in its relations with North Korea for the first time, Sigal said.

Suh Jae-jung, an associate professor at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, said, “South Korea, the United States and Northeast Asia are at an important turning point.” Suh said that combined with negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue and support for Obama’s strategy for a world without nuclear weapons gaining momentum, it is likely that a multilateral security cooperative will be formed in Northeast Asia. Given the announcement by Obama’s transition team that it will “pursue tough, direct diplomacy without preconditions” to “eliminate fully and verifiably North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,” Suh predicted the incoming Obama administration will waste no time in building momentum for further negotiations with the North. Suh pointed out that Obama’s policy on denuclearization of North Korea is in line with his broader goal of achieving a world without nuclear weapons.

The North Korean nuclear issue could become the first test for Obama’s pursuit of a nuclear-free world because Pyongyang has already agreed on the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula under the September 19 Joint Statement, Suh said. Supporting this theory is the fact that influential figures in U.S. diplomacy and security policy such as former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretaries of State George Schultz and Henry Kissinger have already renewed their calls for a “nuclear-free world,” according to Suh.

With inter-Korean relations deteriorating as a rapid current of change is foreseen, voices demanding changes in the Lee Myung-bak administration’s policy toward North Korea have emerged.

Leon Sigal warned that if the South Korean government does not resume food support and pursue negotiations with the North, there is a great danger it will lag behind while U.S.-North Korea relations improve at a rapid rate. In response to President Lee’s recent comment that “even if tensions between South and North Korea escalate, it will have no negative effects on the South Korean economy” in particular, Sigal said it was a statement “ignoring the reality of how sensitive investors have been since the financial crisis began.” He commented that a process of deepening political and economic relations between North Korea and nations such as the United States, South Korea and Japan could spur North Korea to make a decision to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

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