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South Korean Ambassador to the US Cho Yoon-je delivers a keynote address at the Seoul-Washington Forum in Washington

“Inter-Korean relations and the process of denuclearization can’t always move at the same speed,” said South Korean Ambassador to the US Cho Yoon-je on Oct. 16. Cho was expressing the South Korean government’s position in regard to American concerns that South Korea efforts to improve relations with North Korea are getting ahead of North Korea’s denuclearization.

“The position of this government is that the development of inter-Korean relations needs to move forward along with the process of denuclearization and that international sanctions must be implemented faithfully,” Cho said during a keynote speech at the Seoul-Washington Forum, jointly hosted in Washington on Tuesday by South Korea’s Sejong Institute and the US Council on Foreign Relations. But that doesn’t mean that inter-Korean relations and denuclearization can move at the same speed, Cho added, remarking that “the momentum on one side can drive the process on the other and create a virtuous cycle.”

“When inter-Korean relations are moving a little faster than North Korea-US dialogue, that gives South Korea the leverage to act as a facilitator and enables it to break through deadlocks between North Korea and the US,” Cho said.

Cho cited the two inter-Korean summits as examples: “The inter-Korean summit in April served as a springboard for the first North Korea-US summit, and the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in September breathed new life into North Korea-US dialogue. The two tracks of inter-Korean relations and denuclearization provide each other with momentum and enable us to keep moving forward.” Simultaneously, he underlined that “inter-Korean cooperation must be promoted inside the framework of international sanctions.”

Cho’s remarks were aimed to counter the disapproval of American experts and government officials who think that South and North Korea are “moving too fast” in their measures to implement the Apr. 27 Panmunjom Declaration and the Sept. Pyongyang Joint Declaration, both reached by the leaders of the two sides. Leading up to the opening of the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong on Sept. 14, the US government cautioned that inter-Korean relations need to move in sync with denuclearization. After South and North Korea agreed on Oct. 15 to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for connecting the roads and railways along the East and West Seas in late November or early December, the US government reiterated this position and underlined the need to adhere to the sanctions.

In regard to doubts inside the US about North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization, Cho said, “The leaders of South Korea, North Korea and the US have reconfirmed the joint goal of denuclearization in their meetings together, and the North Korea expressed its willingness in the Pyongyang Joint Declaration to allow inspectors into Punggye Village and to permanently dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear facility. These are huge steps that give an opportunity for an unprecedented amount of progress.”

“It’s obviously important to keep testing and verifying North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization, but the best approach is to strive to lead North Korea to take more important steps and Kim Jong-un to keep the promises he has made,” Cho went on to say.

In regard to concerns about the end-of-war declaration, Cho said, “Since this is a political declaration without legal binding power, it would have no effect on the armistice agreement, the South Korea-US alliance or the US troop presence on the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong-un has also expressed his definite understanding of this.”

During the forum, South Korea was represented by Baek Jong-chun, chairman of the Sejong Institute; Paik Hak-soon, the institute’s president; Kim Joon-hyung, professor at Handong Global University; Lee Geun, professor at Seoul National University; and Wi Seong-rak, former director of South Korea's office for negotiating peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The US was represented by Scott Snyder, director of the Korean program at the Council on Foreign Relations; Robert Gallucci, professor at Georgetown University; Evans Revere, the US State Department’s former principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Kathleen Stephens, president of the Korea Economic Institute of America; and David Maxwell, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

On the same day, the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee held a parliamentary audit at South Korea’s delegation to the UN in New York. During the audit, Bareunmirae Party lawmaker Rep. Chung Byeong-guk asked South Korean Ambassador to the UN Cho Tae-yul whether the project to link South and North Korea’s roads and railways would violate the UN Security Council’s sanctions against North Korea.

“That decision would be made by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea,” Cho said. “When the project moves forward in earnest, there would be some aspects that might be in violation of the sanctions. Right now, though, we’re planning to hold a groundbreaking, not actually start the project. This is the beginning of the process.”

When Rep. Cheon Jeong-bae, a lawmaker with the Party for Democracy and Peace, asked if there was a way to move forward with the inter-Korean road and railway connection project and inter-Korean economic cooperation projects without violating sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and by the US, Cho said that that would be “impossible.” When Democratic Party lawmaker Rep. Song Yeong-gil noted that preliminary measures should be taken to ensure that the road and railway connection project doesn’t violate sanctions, Cho said that South Korea was “deliberating closely with the US.”

The very same day, the US was ramping up pressure about maintaining sanctions on North Korea. Stephen Biegun, the US State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea, met with Russian Deputy Foreign Ministers Igor Morgulov and Sergey Ryabkov in Moscow on Tuesday and discussed efforts to achieve North Korea’s final, fully verified denuclearization, or FFVD, the State Department said.

According to the State Department, Biegun emphasized to his counterparts the need to continue fully coordinating their communication to enable the process of denuclearization to proceed as quickly as possible and to enable steps to be taken that will provide a brighter future for North Korea. The State Department also said that the US is focusing on cooperating with Russia and other related countries on the implementation of the strong and ongoing UN sanctions against North Korea with the goal of achieving progress on denuclearization.

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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