Former US Ambassador Gallucchi offers advice on negotiating with North Korea

Posted on : 2017-10-18 17:34 KST Modified on : 2017-10-18 17:34 KST
Architect of Agreed Framework says that talks must begin without preconditions
Former US Ambassador Robert Gallucchi
Former US Ambassador Robert Gallucchi

“For now, I would like to see the US government in unconditional negotiations. Better still if they are senior-level talks. They need to start negotiations, and it’s now time for everyone involved to stop with the provocative language.”

The first North Korean nuclear crisis, touched off in Mar. 1993 by North Korea declaring its unilateral withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was eventually, if tortuously, resolved with the Agreed Framework reached by Washington and Pyongyang in October of the following year.

In basic terms, the deal involved North Korea giving up its nuclear program in exchange for diplomatic relations with and energy supplied by the US. Twenty-three years later, the security situation triggered by the crisis on the Korean Peninsula has not improved in the slightest. The full-scale resurfacing of calls for a preemptive strike against the North, which previously disappeared after the first crisis, provides stark evidence of this.

It is in this context that Robert Gallucci, a former US State Department ambassador-at-large on the North Korean nuclear issue and an architect of the Agreed Framework, put renewed emphasis on “dialogue” and “negotiation” in a talk titled “Dealing with North Korea” delivered at the Yonsei University Centennial Hall in Seoul on the afternoon of Oct. 16.

During the talk, Gallucci directed veiled criticisms at the North Korea policy of the US Donald Trump administration.

“The US gave conditions for starting dialogue, indicating that North Korea has to somehow vouch for its ‘sincerity,’” he noted.

“[Dialogue] needs to begin from a situation without conditions. That’s the only way for the two sides to have [true] dialogue,” he continued.

Gallucci went to say, “This may sound like I’m opposed to sanctions [against North Korea], but I think tough sanctions are a good idea [for now].”

“But sanctions alone are not the answer,” he added.

In terms of a specific approach to North Korea-US dialogue, Gallucci said, “We should start negotiations by recognizing what kind of agenda North Korea wants. I’d like to see Secretary of State [Rex] Tillerson and President Trump beginning talks without any preconditions.”

“Tactically, it may be a good idea to divide things into Track 1 [between governmental authorities] and Track 2 [at the non-governmental level],” he continued, adding that he hoped “negotiations will take place at the assistant secretary or Secretary of State level.”

In the wake of its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3, North Korea claimed to have “perfected national nuclear capabilities” and hinted at additional nuclear and missile provocations to come.

“[North Korea] seems not to be interested in negotiating at the moment,” Gallucci said of this.

“North Korea is only likely to approach dialogue once it’s shown its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities and shown that the US is vulnerable [to the ICBM threat],” he predicted.

Earlier that morning, Gallucci met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a closed-door dialogue at the Blue House. When asked by an audience member what advice he gave Moon, Gallucci replied, “Apparently the South Korean President has reached out to North Korea. If the North does not want to [take part in dialogue], we can’t force it to.”

“While the nuclear and missile issue is a security concern that requires the US to participate [in dialogue], it’s important for South Korea to initial dialogue, whatever the topic,” he added.

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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