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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shakes hand with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of their summit in Vladivostok on Apr. 25. (AFP/Yonhap News)

North Korea’s strategy in the denuclearization negotiations is changing. After talks broke down in its second summit with the US, it shelved its proposal to take the first steps toward denuclearization in exchange for the partial lifting of sanctions and is instead attempting to shift the focus to guaranteeing the regime’s security. That’s a very worrisome move.

In the past, North Korea’s official requirement for denuclearization was a security guarantee, epitomized by the signing of a peace treaty and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the US. But when harsh sanctions by the international community caused greater economic pain and squeezed its economic development strategy, the North adopted a strategy of asking the US to ease economic sanctions as the primary reward for taking the first steps toward denuclearization. The US, however, apparently convinced that it had found the North’s weak point at last, instead raised the bar for lifting sanctions, piling pressure on the North to denuclearize. That’s been effectively illustrated by the US’ attitude since the second summit.

The US appears to have concluded that North Korea will eventually capitulate, unable to bear the economic pain inflicted by its tough sanctions. But I can state positively that this is a miscalculation that will only endanger the denuclearization talks. The North will not capitulate to the US because of economic pain, even if we leave North Korea’s past tendencies out of the discussion. At the present, North Korea has acquired some modicum of momentum for internal development through economic reforms and marketization. So while the US’ refusal to lift economic sanctions will have a serious negative impact on the North’s economic development, the impact won’t be unbearable, and the North Koreans will manage to keep food on the table.

This is also borne out by North Korea’s response. Following the second summit, the North appears to have concluded that its push for relief from economic sanctions has only convinced the US to regard the sanctions as the North’s Achilles heel and to tighten the noose, using the sanctions as leverage in its negotiations with the North. That’s why North Korea has acknowledged the failure of its approach of prioritizing sanctions relief in its negotiations with the US and has announced that it is altering its strategy.

During a policy speech before North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly on Apr. 1, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he’s come to the opinion that there’s no need to be obsessed about the issue of lifting sanctions in a summit with the US. Instead, Kim declared, North Korea will pave the way to prosperity through its own strength. In fact, Kim has begun running the country in a way that presumes that the sanctions will remain in place. Kim has offered self-sufficiency as the preeminent national strategy and has ordered extensions of construction deadlines in visits to the sites of several large-scale economic projects.

But if North Korea stops asking for sanctions to be lifted in its negotiations with the US, the only demand it can make is a security guarantee for the regime. During a press conference held shortly after the Hanoi summit’s premature end, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said, “The more important issue for us as we take steps toward denuclearization is a security guarantee, but we suggested that the US could partially lift sanctions as a corresponding measure because we assume the US is still reluctant to take measures in the military area.” The issue of a security guarantee for North Korea was also brought up by Russian President Vladimir Putin following his summit with Kim at the end of April.

Ultimately, letting this situation play out will soon cause the security guarantee to become the key issue in the denuclearization negotiations. That would likely make the negotiations much trickier and more protracted than they are right now. The security guarantee has long been a source of conflict and contention for North Korea and the US, and it’s a topic about which the North has much to say. Exploiting potential sanctions relief as leverage to force the North to take steps toward denuclearization gave the US the upper hand in the negotiations with North Korea, but if the North stops aiming for sanctions relief and focuses instead on the issue of a security guarantee, neither side will have an advantage in the negotiations, leaving the outcome uncertain. Given the nature of the issue under dispute, the possibility of military tensions rising can’t be ruled out. In the end, the shift in North Korea’s negotiating strategy could become a serious liability for the Trump administration.

When the denuclearization talks become deadlocked or protracted, there are major repercussions for the South Korean government as well. Since inter-Korean relations are currently constrained by South Korea-US cooperation on North Korean sanctions, there may be little progress in inter-Korean relations for a long time to come. In other words, a prolonged stalemate on denuclearization would likely lead to a prolonged deadlock in inter-Korean relations as well, postponing peace on the Korean Peninsula.

To prevent such a risky situation from occurring, the South Korean government needs to step to the plate once more, though that won’t be easy. Seoul needs to come up with creative ideas and persuade North Korea to stick with the framework of trading denuclearization for sanctions relief. It also needs to convince the American government to adopt a flexible stance in the negotiations, having recognized that North Korea not revising its negotiating strategy would work to the advantage of the US.

By Lee Jong-seok, former Unification Minister and senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute

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