Arab News Japan
TOKYO: North Korea’s recent interactions with Russia and China have emboldened the communist state in its dealings with the United States and South Korea, says Jenny Town, the director of 38 North.
US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he would be keen to revive the relationship he had previously with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Kim has effectively ruled out any notion that “denuclearization” of the North is on the table.
“(Kim’s sister) Kim Yo Jong made a series of statements explaining denuclearization is no longer a feasible goal and continued proposals would be considered ‘unserious.’ In her statement about relations with the US in late August, she dropped the hint though, that the prospects for diplomacy were still alive,” Town said at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
“She mentioned that there is reason for two nuclear-armed states not to have confrontational relations and that the relationship between the US and North Korean leaders was not bad.”
Town says that Kim Jong Un has said he still has a “good memory” of Trump and that there is still room for diplomacy, just not about denuclearization.
“I think the bigger question going forward is: Who is the US going to be in the future?” Town says, noting that “there has been an odd mix of isolationist tendencies in this administration.”
As for unification with South Korea, Town said there was no chance of a federalized partnership and the option now is for an “open, free and democratic state, which means it’s an existential threat to the Kim regime.”
“You don’t have a shared goal of unification anymore,” Town says. “I think there’s room for things like peaceful coexistence, but anything that’s contingent on denuclearization is not something that the North Koreans will negotiate with South Korea.”
The fact that the North is growing even closer to Russia and China has also changed the picture, Town says.
“As we saw with the recent V-day parade in Beijing, Kim Jong Un is getting the kind of prestige and legitimacy he has been seeking for decades, by firmly integrating himself into this growing anti-Western network, a network that is likely only going to grow given recent US actions.”
North Korea has greatly expanded cooperation with Russia across political, economic, socio-cultural, education and training, and military sectors, Town says.
The military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is having some tangible effects in terms of improvements of North Korea’s military capabilities, Town says, adding that Russia obviously has a lot of technology that can help North Korea with the ambitions it has.
It’s also getting combat experience in modern warfare from the Russians from fighting in the war in Ukraine and it’s been able to field test its missile systems.
“The kinds of conventional military modernization opportunities that it has now are largely because of that military cooperation with Russia,” Town says. “And we already are starting to see some of it with the transfer of new fighter jets to North Korea and now the rumors of a potential submarine propulsion system to North Korea.”
AloJapan.com