hankyoreh

By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

Joel Wit, a leading American expert on Korean affairs, said that South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s trust-building process for the Korean Peninsula will hit a dead end if the US keeps refusing to join in talks with North Korea. Wit used to work in North Korean affairs for the US State Department.

In an interview with the Hankyoreh’s Washington correspondent on Apr. 1, Wit said, “Park’s trust policy is not going to be effective and sustainable because North Korea is not going to stop developing their nuclear and missile capabilities because of trust policy.”

“President Park can’t move forward with trust policy without the missing piece of puzzle, which is the U.S.” Wit said. “As long as the US remains on the sidelines and does not address the North Korean security issue, Park’s policies will lead to a dead end.”

“The only way for her policy to make any progress is for her to work hard to get the Obama administration to change its position on North Korea. They need to be more open to a balanced approach that include tough measures and also diplomacy,” Wit added.

In regard to the address that Park delivered in Dresden, Germany, Wit said, “Nor did it send the right message to the North Koreans in terms of substance, buying them out when they are building nuclear weapons not to make money but to address security concerns, or in terms of style. Giving a speech in Dresden was not the best choice given the fact that it is the former East Germany.”

Wit described the series of recent actions taken by the North, including live-fire drills in the West (Yellow) Sea and the launch of Rodong missiles, as “carefully calculated steps.”

Wit explained that the naval gunnery practice is part of military drills that North Korea carries out about the same time each year in response to the US-ROK joint military exercises. The firing of the Rodong missile was required by the North as a technical component of its ongoing mid- to long-range missile development, Wit said, though he recognized it probably was political motivated as well.

Nevertheless, Wit said that he did not believe that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had changed his mind about his desire to improve ties with South Korea, which he outlined in his New Year’s address this year.

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