SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – After giving the Biden government silent treatment for two months, North Korea this week brought together two powerful women to warn Washington about combined military exercises with South Korea and the diplomatic consequences of their “hostile” policies towards Pyongyang.
Frustration and belligerence, however, can actually be an opening.
North Korea’s first comments on the new United States government, while full of angry rhetoric, can be seen as the beginning of a diplomatic back-and-forth as the North strives to resume stalled negotiations with the United States. aim of leveraging its nuclear weapons for much needed economic benefits.
The timing of North Korean statements was carefully chosen, with comments reaching the front pages and news as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin traveled to Asia for talks with US allies Tokyo and Seoul about the North Korean threat and other regional challenges.
If any negotiations happen, it could depend on the revision of the Biden government’s policy on North Korea, which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
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WHAT NORTH KOREA IS SAYING
On Tuesday, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister rebuked the latest US-South Korea military exercises, which were scheduled to end a nine-day race on Thursday.
Describing the exercises as an invasion test, Kim Yo Jong warned Washington to “avoid causing discomfort” if it wants to “sleep in peace” for the next four years.
North Korea’s first deputy foreign minister, Choe Sun Hui, said in a statement on Thursday that the North will continue to ignore US offers for negotiations unless it abandons what the North describes as hostile policies .
Choe was responding to Blinken’s comments this week that Washington reached the North via multiple channels starting in mid-February, but received no response.
“What has been heard from the United States since the new regime emerged is just a lunatic theory of ‘North Korea threat’ and baseless rhetoric about ‘complete denuclearization’,” said Choe, calling American negotiating offers a “time- delay trick. ”
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WHAT PYONGYANG WANTS
Choe’s statement may be an attempt by the North to create an environment to re-enter nuclear negotiations from a position of strength, according to Shin Beomchul, an analyst at the Korean Research Institute for National Strategy, based in Seoul.
Negotiations between Washington and Seoul have stalled for more than two years since the collapse of the nuclear summit between Kim Jong Un and former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019. The two sides disagreed on the details of a plan to exchange sanctions relief. for disarmament. Pyongyang has repeatedly stated that it will not engage in meaningful negotiations as long as Washington persists with sanctions and pressure.
“It is clear that the North is trying to strengthen its bargaining power,” said Shin.
But North Korea may also be preparing for tougher words to the Biden government about Blinken’s repeated condemnations in Seoul to the North’s human rights record, something that Trump ignored while seeking media-friendly summits with Kim. This can complicate any future negotiations
The North is extremely sensitive to outside criticism of its dire human rights conditions, which it sees as an attack on its leadership, and Choe’s statement appeared to have been drafted before the North could decide on a response to Blinken’s comments.
“There is likely to be serious opposition from the North” over Blinken’s comments on human rights, said Park Won Gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University.
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LECTURES AND PRESSURE
Most experts agree that the North will end up trying to return to negotiations to try to get help, but they differ about when – and what it would take for negotiations to resume.
Kim recently challenged the advancement of a nuclear arsenal that he sees as his greatest guarantee of survival. He also urged his people to be resilient in the struggle for economic self-sufficiency by launching a new multi-year plan to save their broken economy.
Kim’s focus on his domestic economic momentum could mean that the North will stay away from negotiations for another year and will only return after it becomes clear that Kim’s new policies are failing, Shin said.
“If North Korea is really desperate for a quick resumption of negotiations, they would test an intercontinental ballistic missile around April 15,” the birthday of Kim’s founding grandfather, Kim Il Sung, to pressure Washington to enter into negotiations, he said. Shin.
But he said the North is more likely to avoid provoking the Biden government – and inviting more pressure – because Kim’s priority is to quietly cement his country as a nuclear power, which is also a key objective of its domestic economic momentum.
The North can still try to carry out short-range test launches that threaten South Korea, but not the American homeland. But, said Shin, “they will keep any dramatic action on hold, at least until the revision of the Biden government’s policy on North Korea is released.”
Kim must navigate the complicated relationship with Washington as his country faces sanctions, pandemic border closures and plantation-killing natural disasters that may be pushing the North toward worse economic instability.
Whatever the movements of the North, his recent messages signal that he will not return to negotiations unless the United States offers at least some level of sanction relief. This, however, is unlikely to happen without a significant cut in Kim’s nuclear capabilities.