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Four Reasons North Korea Negotiations Are Needed
By maudeaster on 2018-04-12 09:34:44
When Trump responded positively to North Korean President Kim Jong Un’s invitation to meet, a huge sigh of relief
washed through the Pentagon, Congress, across North East Asia and in fact around the world. Thankfully, secret direct
talks to set up this meeting are already underway, apparently through CIA channels, as well as between the State Department
and North Korean representatives at the UN. Here are four important things to remember about why these talks are so
needed: 1.Remember the terrifying place we were just 4 months ago. Trump’s response to successful North
- Korean tests of its nuclear weapons and its long-range missiles was to engage
in name calling and threats of a US nuclear strike, seemingly unaware of the devastating human toll this would create.
Others in the administration, including then National Security Adviser McMaster, called for preemptive conventional
strikes, despite warnings from Secretary of Defense Mattis that a war with North Korea would be “more serious in terms of
human suffering than anything we've seen since 1953. It will involve the massive shelling of an ally's capital, which is one
of the most densely packed cities on earth." The Los Angeles Times reported that based on a Pentagon war simulation, a
retired U.S. army general said it’s estimated such a conflict would result in 20,000 deaths per day in South Korea.
Fortunately, diplomatic moves by both South and North Korea created space for Trump and his more hawkish advisers to
step back from the precipice created by his nuclear button threats, giving us now some hope for progress. 2. Remember that
for negotiations to create a successful, lasting outcome, both parties must gain. Both the US and North Korea have
agreed that denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula is on the table. Trump surely will want to hear that North Korea will move
toward ending its nuclear program with specific reductions along the way. Hopefully, he will realize this will only occur if
the US is willing to step back its side of the nuclear threat as well. Ending nuclear-capable bomber runs over the peninsula,
and patrols by navy vessels capable of launching nuclear weapons are obvious offers the US could make.
ES ‘ar games and the stationing of US troops on the peninsula - neither really
essential to US security - should be on n the table as well if the US wants significant progress from North Korea. Willingness
to sign — and honor — a peace treaty or other non-aggression pact will be really important. 3.Remember that there is a long
history behind North Korea’s feeling threatened by the US:
e The Korean peninsula was one unified country for over 5,000 years and resisted strongly its occupation by Japan from
1910-1945. With the Japanese defeat in 1945, Koreans expected to control their own country again, but the US and the
Soviet Union imposed an artificial dividing line between North and South.
In the North. the Soviets supported the leader of the resistance to the Japanese, Kim II Sung, as president, but withdrew their
troops in 1948; in the South, the US supported jailing resistance leaders, brought in Syngman Rhee from exile in the US to
serve as president, and US troops remained. North Korea, from the beginning of the division, felt it was being cheated by the
US occupation from half the territory Koreans had fought so hard to liberate from the Japanese.
¢ North Korea was devastated by the US military during the Korean War. Over 3 million North Korean lives were lost,
[caption id="attachment_ 11103" align="alignright" width="299" |= * ieee Pi
Pyongyang after Korean Warand 75% of Pyongyang was destroyed, with American pilots reporting there were no
buildings left to target. [/caption]
e Historian Lee Jae-Bong describes how, in 1951 during the Korean War, the U.S. issued threats of a nuclear attack on
North Korea. In 1958, US moved nuclear weapons into South Korea where they remained until at least 1990. Lee
describes estimates of numbers ranging from several hundred to a 1,000 — lethal at any level.
[caption id="attachment_ 11098" align="alignnone" width="300"] US Bases
in South Korea[/caption]
e The US now has over 23,000 troops stationed at 83 different sites in South Korea, many just miles from the North
Korean border. US nuclear-capable planes overfly the peninsula, and US missile-launching naval vessels patrol the
coast. The annual spring-time US/South Korea huge war games, involving over 300,000 troops, tanks, planes and
ships, amplify that threat, often provoking an angry response from North Korea. It was a sign of North Korea’s
commitment to improving relations with the US and the South that Pyongyang agreed that this year’s planned giant
exercises would not become an obstacle to its negotiations with either Seoul or Washington.
4. Remember that Pyongyang has been incredibly consistent, since long before it developed nuclear weapons, that
what it really wanted was for the US to formalize a non-aggression agreement to provide North Korea security
from attack. I learned firsthand the importance of this to North Korean leaders in 1980. I had the opportunity to go to
North Korea as | of a 3-person American Friends Service Committee peace delegation, the first non-sectarian
American organization to visit during a period when no North Koreans were allowed entry by the US (except those at
the UN).
We met with Kim Yong-nam, then Foreign Secretary, now the titular head of state whom we all saw at the Seoul
Olympics with Kim Jong Un’s sister. Kim Yong-nam was very clear: North Korea feared military action by the US troops
stationed in the South and wanted above all to negotiate a peace treaty with the US to officially end the Korean War. North
Korea was open to exchanges and other tension-reducing steps with South Korea. Upon returning to the US, we met with
people in Carter’s National Security Council, the State Department and Congress. We were hopeful --- then Reagan won that
fall’s election, and the climate in Washington changed. What a tragedy that the US did not move forward to improve its
relations with North Korea then, before North Korea’s nuclear program began _ significant expansion. Will the Trump-
Kim meeting happen? Will the US actually agree to the give and take necessary to negotiate an agreement? Trump’s
recent national security appointments are clearly the biggest threat to successful negotiations.
e Time’s Charlie Campbell summarized the obstacles posed by Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:
“Pompeo has been one of the most hawkish voices on Nort Korea’s
escalating missile and nuclear tests and is unlikely to inspire confidence in a regime wary of American capriciousness
regarding international pacts. In July, he suggested that regime change would be a positive development welcomed by
the North Korean people and has refused to condemn preemptive military action.”
Trump’s newly arrived National Security Adviser John Bolton has called for regime change in North Korea,
advocated a US nuclear attack on North Korea, and promoted pre-
emptive conventional military strikes — exactly the positions that make North Korea fear giving up its own nuclear
arsenal. "John Bolton was by far the most dangerous man we had in the entire eight years of the Bush administration,"
Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, tweeted on March 16. "Hiring
him as the president's top national security adviser is an invitation to war, perhaps nuclear war."
Unfortunately, Bolton does not require Senate approval, but Pompeo does. Please join me in signing Code Pink’s
letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging that Pompeo not be confirmed. Give US-North Korea
negotiations a chance to succeed!
