Ellen Kim

Inserted 1 year ago

“The current diplomatic impasse is clearly due to North Korea's disinterest in talks with the U.S. and South Korea, which seems in part because North Korea wants to signal that the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea is off the negotiation table. But if North Korea's internal and/or external (particularly with respect to China and Russia) environment changes, there could be a window of opportunity that North Korea may want to resume dialogue with the United States and/or South Korea to seek a partial sanctions relief and other things. We should not give up the North's denuclearization because if we do that, this will make North Korea believe that their strategy of nuclear coercion works and could lead the country to make miscalculations and become more aggressive.”

Koreatimes

Deputy director of the Korea Chair at the Washington-based think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)