Experts cautious over prospects for NK-荆门市某某建材制造厂

Experts cautious over prospects for NK

2024-09-20 22:32:16

President Moon Jae-in,<strong></strong> center, attends the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, front row left, and North Korean delegation leader Kim Yong-chol, back row right, also attended the ceremony. / Yonhap

President Moon Jae-in, center, attends the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, front row left, and North Korean delegation leader Kim Yong-chol, back row right, also attended the ceremony. / Yonhap

By Choi Ha-young

Analysts here generally gave positive assessments on North Korea's softening stance toward talks with the United States, but remained cautious over the prospects for their talks.

On Sunday, Kim Yong-chol, head of the North Korean delegation, said the North is willing to have a dialogue with the United States. The move came amid much hope during the visit of Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, along with Allison Hooker, a National Security Council official who previously met Kim.

Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University, said Kim's remark is "the most forward-looking" one ever released. "So far, the North has sternly refused to talk with the U.S. The possibility of Washington-Pyongyang dialogue is higher than before," Park said.

The change is against the backdrop of increasing economic hardships caused by international sanctions, experts said. In addition, the North's nuclear and missile capacity has reached its limit.

"The latest nuclear test was successful, but re-entry technology of its intercontinental ballistic missiles is questionable. That's why the North hastily declared it mastered the nuclear technology late last year, in an apparent bid to shift to dialogue," said Cho Han-bum, senior research fellow from the Korea Institute for National Unification.

Still, the outlook is not so rosy for the denuclearization of North Korea ― the ultimate goal of the U.S. "North Korea didn't develop the nuclear weapons aiming to be denuclearized," said Koh Yu-hwan, who teaches North Korean studies at Dongguk University.

"The North will negotiate to gain recognition for its nuclear weapons, attaching conditions like no mass production or no more ICBM test-launches. The key of possible U.S.-North Korea dialogue is how to narrow the gap between the U.S. call for complete denuclearization and North Korea's efforts for a partial nuclear freeze."

As the mood for the talks matures, the U.S. will maximize its pressure against the North, as seen by the U.S. administration's renewal of sanctions against the North. "The U.S. position and our joint position of maximum pressure with our South Korean partners is very important," Ivanka Trump said in an interview with NBC, Monday.

"Therefore, the U.S. will revive the combined military exercises as originally planned," Cho said. However, it is unlikely the North will test-fire an ICBM or carry out nuclear tests in protest of the exercises, since it will bring stronger sanctions on the isolated country.

For a while, the two countries will explore each other through direct or indirect contact. "The North will wonder what it will be able to receive from the U.S., in exchange for nuclear renunciation," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute.

A hurdle for the talks is the Trump administration's intensive criticism on North Korea's human rights, Cheong said. The U.S. president met with North Korean defectors, while Vice President Mike Pence visited the Cheonan Memorial on the sidelines of his visit to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

"The North might be bewildered by the moves of the U.S.," Cheong said. "The South's Moon administration can mediate disputes between the two, as it has done so far."

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