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President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea walks with President Joe Biden of the US along a corridor of the White House ahead of their summit on April 26. (Yonhap)

The leaders of South Korea and the US have been gradually taking a harder line on North Korea.

In a joint press conference following their summit on Wednesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol mentioned neither dialogue nor negotiations with North Korea, while US President Joe Biden spoke of “the end” of the North Korean regime.

While tensions on the Korean Peninsula are high because of North Korea’s repeated testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the joint military exercises that South Korea and the US have carried out in response, it’s troubling that the two leaders would not even send a positive signal about “dialogue” toward North Korea, even if only on the level of diplomatic rhetoric.

Yoon and Biden devoted a considerable portion of the joint statement they released after their summit to emphasizing how extended deterrence against North Korea has been strengthened by the establishment of the Korea-US Nuclear Consultative Group on the North Korean nuclear weapon and missile threat.

The two leaders sent an even tougher signal to North Korea in their joint press conference than in the joint statement.

“A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or [. . .] partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime were [. . .] to take such an action,” Biden said during the press conference.

This is the first time that Biden has used the expression “the end of the regime,” which first appeared in the Nuclear Posture Review published by the US Department of Defense in October 2022.

Biden also mentioned “the DPRK’s increased threats and the blatant violation of US sanctions,” using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.

Instead of proposing dialogue with North Korea, Biden and Yoon shunted responsibility for the breakdown of dialogue and negotiations to North Korea by calling for Pyongyang to “return” to negotiations. In their joint statement, for example, they said that “the only viable means of achieving lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula [is for] the DPRK to return to negotiations.”

That amounted to a step back from Yoon and Biden’s emphasis on the fact “that the path to dialogue remains open” in their joint statement after their first summit in Seoul on May 21, 2022.

In that statement, Biden had expressed his “support for inter-Korean cooperation,” but no such language appeared in this year’s joint statement. Instead, the following expression was added to the statement: “President Biden reaffirmed his support for the goals of the ROK’s Audacious Initiative.”

The initiative is Yoon’s proposal to help North Korea improve its economy and livelihood in a series of steps provided that North Korea makes actual progress toward denuclearization.

While the two leaders were in sync in the hard-line message they sent to North Korea, a closer look reveals a difference in emphasis. Yoon was consistently rigid in his message, but the US, while generally playing along, also showed interest in managing the situation.

Yoon said in an interview that ran on NBC on Tuesday that it would be “unrealistic” to expect much from negotiations with North Korea while stressing that “the important thing is that we have to make North Korea never dare to resort to its nuclear weapons.”

And in an interview with Reuters on April 19, Yoon said he wouldn’t hold an inter-Korean summit that was just for show.

In contrast, US national security advisor Jake Sullivan and John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the White House’s National Security Council, mentioned that the US seeks dialogue with North Korea and is willing to provide humanitarian aid on Monday and Tuesday. Both officials also stressed achieving the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

“The message for North Korea in this summit, including the Washington Declaration, is actually intended not for Pyongyang but for Seoul. There wasn’t any message meaningful enough to change Kim Jong-un’s thinking or attitude for the better,” said a veteran member of the foreign policy and national security community.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]