hankyoreh

The Blue House in Seoul

The aim of complete denuclearization is “difficult to achieve all at once,” the Blue House said in Mar. 17 comments on the denuclearization talks between North Korea and the US.

The Blue House also stressed the “need to reconsider the ‘all-or-nothing strategy.’”

Meeting with reporters that day, a senior Blue House official said, “Going forward, they will need to get away from this very conclusive framework for North Korea talks in the North Korea-US denuclearization negotiations.”

“The argument that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ is not helpful,” the official added.

“As a first step, we need to get North Korea to reach an agreement to achieve the comprehensive aim, and we need efforts to use that as a foundation for turning a ‘small deal’ into a ‘good enough deal,’” the official suggested.

“I think we need a series of one or two ‘early harvests’ to achieve meaningful progress with denuclearization,” the official said. The remarks were seen as calling for a more flexible attitude from the US, which has adopted a “big deal” strategy since the breakdown of the second North Korea-US summit last month by insisting that North Korea eliminate or freeze all of its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons along with other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.

The Blue House also indicated it would act as a “driver” for North Korea-US dialogue through efforts with Pyongyang to reduce tensions.

“We helped last year in moving North Korea-US dialogue forward, and US President Donald Trump helped drive dialogue between the South and North Korean leaders through the North Korea-US summit on June 12 in Singapore,” the official said.

“It may be our ‘turn’ this time with inter-Korean dialogue,” the official added. “We’ll consider how we can use the baton that’s been passed to us.”

By Seong Yeon-cheol, staff reporter

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