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Jan. 20. (Blue House photo pool)

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent in Bern and Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

President Park Geun-hye came out with another provocative statement on Jan. 20 during a summit in the Swiss capital of Bern.

“North Korea may need to change by itself, but if it can’t do that, then we need to create an environment where it has no choice,” Park said at the summit with Swiss President Didier Burkhalter. Terms like “change,” “openness,” and “reforms” are seen as taboo in North Korea, since they hint at the possibility of regime change.

Park’s remarks in Bern continued a trend since the start of the year of dismissing Pyongyang’s proposals for improved relations as “lacking sincerity.”

“North Korea has been talking about improving inter-Korean relations recently, but it’s difficult to sense any sincerity,” Park continued. “What we need more than anything else is the North Korean leadership’s strategic determination to abandon its nuclear program.”

Her statement, while ostensibly a call for change from within, also expressed distrust of Pyongyang and emphasized the role of environmental changes in bringing about change. Park had indicated before that she planned to maintain a hard line. Now that she has made a potentially provocative statement aimed at ramping up pressure on North Korea, the question is how it will respond. During a visit to India on Jan. 18, Park had called for an “impregnable security posture” in response to North Korea’s “momentous proposal,” pointing to past examples of “disguised peace offensives.”

Park also praised Switzerland for denouncing North Korea’s nuclear tests and taking an active role in UN Security Council resolutions sanctioning Pyongyang.

At the same time, it was also reported that a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would not be taking part in joint military exercises with South Korea in February. On Jan. 21, a source with the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said the US military has “tentatively decided not to send its Navy’s aircraft carriers to the waters around the Korean Peninsula during this year’s Key Resolve exercises.”

The statement was referring to the 97,000-ton USS George Washington, part of the US 7th Fleet stationed in Japan. Repairs to the aging vessel were given as the official reason for its sitting out the exercises, but analysts suggested the decision to avoid needlessly provoking Pyongyang may have been another factor.

Attention is now turning to the effect the absence of the carrier - which North Korea sees as a major threat - on quieting Pyongyang’s denunciations of the exercises. No decision has been made yet on whether they will include B-2s, B-52s, and other bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons - an even more sensitive issue for the North than nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

President Park Geun-hye greets students at the Commercial and Industrial training College (GIBB) in Bern

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