Axel Berkofsky, Adjunct Professor at the University Milan and Advisor on Asian Affairs at the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels, writes, “Sitting quietly on the sidelines of the process of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, the EU has never been invited or made any clear efforts to become actively involved in the six-party North Korea nuclear talks. And while the US, Japan, South Korea, China and, of course, North Korea, call all the shots, Brussels waits for the right moment to step in.”

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Yukio Satoh, Former President of the Japan Institute of International Affairs and Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations from October 1998 till August 2002, writes, “The time has come for the governments of Japan and the United States to articulate better the shared concept of extended deterrence, nuclear or otherwise, in order to assure the Japanese that deterrence will continue to function under changing strategic circumstances and with technological developments.”

Leon V. Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, writes, “Pyongyang’s basic stance is that as long as Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul remain adversaries, it feels threatened and will acquire nuclear weapons and missiles to counter that threat. But, it says, if Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo move toward reconciliation, it will get rid of these weapons. Whether North Korea means what it says isn’t certain, but the only way to test it is to try to build mutual trust over time by faithfully carrying out a series of reciprocal steps that starts now.”