hankyoreh

By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer

A former US State Department aide who played a critical role in the Agreed Framework between the US and North Korea in 1994 said on Feb. 19 that diplomatic engagement on the North Korean issue may be the best way of reaching a resolution.

Robert Gallucci, current president of the MacArthur Foundation, discussed the limitations of Washington’s North Korea policy over the past two decades in a keynote speech at the 2013 Asan Nuclear Forum. The event was held in Seoul at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, organized by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, an organization headed by chairman Ham Jae-bong.

In his speech, Gallucci said US policies of engagement and isolation had both failed at reducing North Korea’s threat to the region. He went on to say that if North Korea was developing nuclear weapons for an armed effort to reunify the peninsula and attack the US, it might be possible to avoid a military clash, but it would be impossible to truly ease regional tensions.

At the same time, he expressed, “It’s my conclusion that the best approach to the current situation is the same one adopted 20 years, namely diplomatic engagement to determine whether Pyongyang is developing nuclear weapons to protect is own regime, verify the genuineness of its intentions, and look for the possibility of a political resolution to tensions.”

During a question-and-answer session with reporters after his talk, Gallucci responded to a query about the Obama administration’s first steps as part of a diplomatic engagement process by saying, “Pyongyang needed to be provided an opportunity to make a choice. He also said that US demands for denuclearization and North Korea’s security concerns should be part of the agenda for future talks.”

Commenting that Washington, Beijing, Seoul, and Pyongyang all needed to have key roles in this approach, he also suggested that denuclearization and the establishment of a peace regime on the peninsula might move in tandem through four-party talks among both Koreas, the US, and China. He went on to say that it would be better for Russian and Japanese participation to come at a later stage.

Opinion in the US has been building behind a hard-line response, including possible sanctions, after North Korea’s third nuclear test, which was conducted last week. But Gallucci is not the only former North Korea policy official calling for an approach based on diplomacy and negotiation. Former North Korean policy coordinator and Clinton-era Secretary of Defense William Perry has also advocated this approach, while Stephen Bosworth, who oversaw North Korea policy as Special Representative from the State Department during Obama’s first term, recommended a “comprehensive” approach to North Korean issues in general during a Feb. 15 talk at a US research institute.

Declaring that it was time for the US to take the North Korean threat more seriously, Bosworth advocated a comprehensive approach that did not focus solely on the nuclear issue, but included negotiations on the signing of a peace agreement and providing economic and energy aid to North Korea.

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