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Kye Chun-yong

North Korea could suspend its nuclear weapons and missile testing if the US and South Korea suspended their joint military exercises, said Kye Chun-yong, North Korea’s ambassador to India. He also hinted at the possibility of negotiations designed to end North Korea’s nuclear program. Kye’s remarks are significant not only because he is believed to be a confidante of North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong but also because they appear at a critical juncture, just one week before the South Korea-US summit.

"Under certain circumstances, we are willing to talk in terms of the freezing of nuclear testing and missile testing," Kye said during an interview on the Indian TV network WION on June 21. Kye served as deputy ambassador when Ri Su-yong was the ambassador in charge of the North Korean delegation to Geneva. Considering that North Korean diplomats typically receive instructions from Pyongyang about how to handle interviews with the foreign media, North Korea seems to have deliberately chosen to indirectly express its viewpoint at shortly before the South Korea-US summit.

“For instance, if the American side completely stopped big, large-scale military exercises, temporarily or permanently, then we will also temporarily stop,” Kye said in the video of the interview, which WION posted to YouTube. Kye said that the two sides could then discuss the current situation peacefully.

“Under certain circumstances, we are willing to talk in terms of freezing nuclear testing or missile testing,” Kye went on to say. In a place as small as the Korean Peninsula (just 220,000 square kilometers in area), Kye said, there is no logical need for such dangerous weapons. But “the possessing of the nuclear weapons is an inevitable, very arduous choice to defend the right of existence,” he said. These remarks can be interpreted as meaning that Pyongyang is willing to engage in negotiations predicated on the elimination of North Korea’s nuclear program.

This is not the first time that North Korea has offered to suspend its nuclear weapons and missile testing in exchange for South Korea and the US suspending their joint military exercises. In April 2016, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong mentioned the possibility of suspending nuclear testing: “It’s very important for the American government to abolish its policy of hostility to North Korea and, as a token of this, to suspend its military exercises and war games on the Korean Peninsula. In that case, we would take the corresponding measures, too.” And in January 2015, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that if the US would temporarily suspend its joint military exercises with South Korea, “North Korea would also be willing to respond by temporarily suspending the nuclear tests that the US is concerned about.”

A senior official at the Blue House said that Kye’s remarks “cannot be regarded as North Korea’s official position,” though it does consider it necessary to figure out the North’s exact intentions. “It’s difficult to determine what exactly Pyongyang intends based solely on the remarks of its ambassador to India. It would be promising, however, if North Korea wants to break out of the present situation and if it is moving [in that direction],” said a senior official at the Blue House.

For Kim Yeon-cheol, a professor at Inje University, Kye’s remarks were “a proposal for the most basic early steps aimed at testing mutual trust prior to actual dialogue. You could say that North Korea is showing it means to verify both sides’ stances toward the negotiations while it’s at the door leading to those negotiations.”

“North Korea seems to have deliberately chosen to make this proposal before the South Korea-US summit. Provided that we can confirm Pyongyang’s real intentions, there’s the possibility that this will lead to positive steps,” said Korea National Strategy Institute director Kim Chang-soo.

By Jung In-hwan and Lee Se-young, staff reporters

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