Young Whan Kihl, Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Iowa State University, Ames, writes, “The Roh Moo-hyun government ‘Peace and Prosperity Policy’ was aimed at the Northeast Asian region as a whole, but it rested on the premise that the North Korean nuclear issue will be resolved peacefully. Roh’s vision of making his country an economic hub, together with playing a ‘balancer role’ in regional dynamics, will go nowhere if North Korea continues to refuse to abandon its nuclear program.”

Jungmin Kang, Nautilus Institute Senior Associate and Science Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, describes the first steps that can be taken by the DPRK to “irreversibly dismantle its plutonium production programs and move the Six Party Talks forward.” In response, he argues, the other five nations should take corresponding actions that might include, “a significant albeit partial lifting of economic sanctions imposed to North Korea by the US, energy and food assistance to North Korea by the other five countries, and legally binding security assurances to North Korea.”

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Response to “First Technical Steps for North Korean Denuclearization” Response to “First Technical Steps for North Korean Denuclearization” Policy Forum Online 07-011A: February 8th, 2007 Response to “First Technical Steps for North Korean Denuclearization” Article by Kosima Weber Liu CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Comments by Kosima Weber Liu on “First Technical Steps for North Korean […]

Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), writes, “The Dear Leader and his team understand very well that the Six-Party ‘denuclearization’ farce now provides perfect international diplomatic cover for an unobstructed North Korean nuclear arms buildup. What the other parties in the talk do not seem to understand–or in the case of an increasingly weakened Bush Presidency, perhaps fear to face–is that the only “solutions” to the North Korean nuclear crisis worthy of the name require a better class of dictator in Pyongyang.”

Robert Carlin, a former State Department analyst who participated in most of the U.S.-North Korea negotiations between 1993 and 2000, and John Lewis, professor emeritus at Stanford University who directs projects on Asia at the university’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, write, “Denuclearization, if still achievable, can come only when North Korea sees its strategic problem solved, and that, in its view, can happen only when relations with the United States improve.”