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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

Just one day after the US government placed its first sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the US and South Korean governments abruptly announced that they had officially decided to deploy THAAD in South Korea. The sanctions against Kim Jong-un have the effect of legitimizing the deployment of THAAD, which is itself supposed to be a response to North Korean provocations.

There is something curious about the order of events surrounding the US announcement of the THAAD deployment.

First, North Korea released a statement by a government spokesperson on the night of July 6, just before the US government announced its sanctions against Kim Jong-un. “Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was the dying wish of our Great Leader, Father and General [Kim Il-sung], and it is the indubitable resolution of the Party, the Army and the People moving forward under the leadership of our beloved comrade Kim Jong-un,” the North said in the statement.

To be sure, the North Korean statement included the impossible condition of the removal of US forces, but the North’s recent mention of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” (instead of “denuclearization of the world”) and its reference to “dying injunction” are something new. They can be seen as tentative movement by North Korea toward some kind of exit strategy and as a message to the US that negotiations about North Korea’s nuclear program are still an option.

While the phrase “denuclearization of the world” meant that North Korea would consider nuclear disarmament if it were recognized as a nuclear-weapons state on a level with the US, the phrase “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” partially suggests that North Korea might give up its nuclear weapons.

But the US government immediately announced sanctions against North Korea’s leader, taking diplomacy and negotiations off the table. Intentionally or not, this shut the door on North Korea’s exit strategy.

The fact that the official announcement about the deployment of THAAD occurred two days after North Korea’s government statement and just one day after the sanctions against North Korea is even more suggestive.

If the US had taken the North Korean government statement describing “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” as a “dying wish” to mean that North Korea was willing to negotiate, it likely could not have announced the deployment of the THAAD system, which is supposedly designed to prevent North Korean provocations. On the other hand, by placing sanctions against Kim Jong-un for human rights violations and framing Kim as a dangerous and unpredictable figure, the US was able to set the mood for deploying THAAD.

Regardless of intentionality, the US government was ultimately following a strategic timeframe aimed at the deployment of THAAD.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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