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US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

Kim Yeon-cheol.

In 1998, William Perry received a letter from Ukraine, along with a sunflower seed. As US Secretary of Defense two years earlier, he had eliminated Ukraine’s nuclear warheads and nuclear material, dismantled missiles into scrap metal, and planted sunflowers in missile bases that had been converted into farmland. The seed was evidence of swords being turned to plowshares, of coercion being turned to cooperation – the hope of denuclearization.

In the 15 years after the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, around 50,000 of its nuclear weapon scientists changed professions and countless alternative industry facilities were established. Dismantling nuclear facilities means providing a new livelihood to the soldiers, scientists, laborers, and residents working there. The US invested US$1.6 billion the former Soviet Union alone to turn swords into plowshares – a program referred to as Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR). In Libya, training was provided to help nuclear program technicians find new careers, and chemical weapon production infrastructure was converted into factories to produce anti-malaria medication. Would something like this work in North Korea too?

The most important part of a resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue is cooperation. Pyongyang argues that its nuclear weapons are a means of deterrence against security threats; once the security threats are resolved, it may be capable of abandoning them. In the North Korean nuclear negotiations, this has been referred to as the principle of “commitment for commitment, actions for actions.” The key part of this simultaneous action approach is not “mechanical balance,” but changing relationships. Only when relationships change does the need for deterrence disappear. The rate at which antagonism gives way to cooperation will decide the rate of denuclearization.

The time has come to specifically consider a CTR effort at Yongbyon, which is home to many of North Korea’s nuclear facilities. Both Pyongyang and Washington have said they do not intend to repeat past failures. It’s time now to move beyond the freezes and disablement of the past and fully dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facilities. The level of cooperation must be bold as well, of course. We need to plant azaleas where the reactors once stood, convert chemical plants into fertilizer factories, and offer new jobs to nuclear engineers and soldiers.

CTR leads in turn to the easing of sanctions. As a rule, sanctions must remain in place until a denuclearization agreement is reached, but sanctions will need to be lifted for implementation of that agreement to begin. For instance, the US will need to amend or abolish laws related to sanctions in order to spend budget money on CTR at Yongbyon; it cannot have sanctions in place and offer support at the same time.

The same is true for normalizing relations as part of the comprehensive agreement. Normalizing relations will require abolishing the Trading with the Enemy Act and removing the North’s state sponsor of terrorism designation. It means normalizing relations in a broad sense, encompassing not only but diplomatic but also economic ties. Costs for the CTR effort at Yongbyon will need to be borne not just by the US but by all countries with an interest in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.

Within the US, CTR was a symbolic effort involving cooperation across party lines. The program was referred to as “Nunn-Lugar,” as the legislation was crafted jointly by Democratic Senator Sam Nunn and Republican Senator Richard Lugar. If our goal is North Korea’s denuclearization, our own internal cooperation is important in addition to cooperation with North Korea. Only when we ensure the continuity of agreements irrespective of administrations will North Korea be able to forever abandon its nuclear arms. This is why bipartisan cooperation – as difficult as it is becoming in South Korea and the US alike – remains so important.

It is time for us to once again marshal our wisdom when it comes to denuclearization. We must make the transition now from coercion to cooperation. Coercion leads to armament; cooperation is the only path to resolving the threat and getting North Korea to lay down its arms.

By Kim Yeon-cheol, Professor of Reunification Studies, Inje University

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