A Quote by Andrei Lankov
Most people in Seoul don't care about the North's belligerent statements: The farther one is from the Korean Peninsula, the more one will find people worried about the recent developments here. Scary impressions are important to North Korea because for the last two decades its policy has been, above all, a brilliant exercise in diplomatic blackmail. And blackmail usually works better when the practitioners are seen as irrational and unpredictable.
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The solution to North Korea is the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. China could influence the North; it supplies 80 to 90 percent of North Korea's energy. The United States have to put pressure on China in order for China to pressure North Korea.
During the periods when South Korea played a more active role, the inter-Korean relationship was more peaceful, and there was less tension between the United States and North Korea. The last U.S. administration pursued a policy of strategic patience and did not make any effort to improve its relationship with North Korea. Also, the previous Korean government did not make any such efforts. The result is the reality you see today - North Korea continuing to advance its nuclear and missile program.
North Korea is no threat at all. I have already spoken about it during countless televised interviews. I visited North Korea and mingled with its people. There, nobody wants war. The North Korean people paid a terrible price for their independence. Its civilians were murdered mercilessly in tunnels by Western forces; its women were brutally raped, entire villages and towns leveled to the ground, or burned to ashes. All this is never discussed in the West, but is remembered in North Korea.
If we - particularly, if we peremptorily attack North Korea - that without deliberation, that North Korea will reflexively unleash all the rocketry and artillery - which they're pretty good at, by the way - on Seoul, and do as they vowed many times, to convert Seoul into a sea of fire. So, if we do something like this, this will have cataclysmic results.
It's important to understand the policy of the U.S. towards North Korea is to deny North Korea possession of a nuclear weapon and the ability to deliver that weapon. Our strategy has been to undertake this peaceful pressure campaign we call it enabled by the four no's.The four no's being that we do not seek regime change, a regime collapse, an accelerated reunification of the peninsula, and we do not seek a reason to send our forces north of the demilitarized zone.
Beijing cannot sit by and let her North Korean ally be bombed, nor can it allow U.S. and South Korean forces to defeat the North, bring down the regime, and unite the peninsula, with U.S. and South Korean soldiers sitting on the Yalu, as they did in 1950 before Mao ordered his Chinese army into Korea.
North Korean defectors who speak out against the regime always feel nervous. We never know what the North Korean government is planning. It's really difficult for us to show our faces and speak out, but we feel obligated to do something to inform people about the ongoing tragedy inside North Korea.
I think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."
South Korea was able to build its national security thanks to the U.S., and the two nations will work together on the North Korean nuclear issue. However, I believe we need to be able to take the lead on matters in the Korean Peninsula as the country directly involved.
My parents fled from North Korea during the Korean War because they despised the North Korean Communist regime. They fled to seek freedom and came to South Korea.
In contrast, Western historians, and those in South Korea, say the North attacked the South on June 25, 1950. Both sides agree that after the war began, the North Korean Army captured Seoul in three days and pushed as far south as Pusan before American troops arrived to drive back the North Koreans nearly as far north as the border to China.
We must work to make the South-North Korea dialogue lead to talks between the United States and North Korea. Only then can we peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.
The message that we must send to North Korea is twofold: If the North Korean regime believes that it can defend and protect itself through nuclear and missile programs, that is a misjudgment. But if North Korea gives up its nuclear program, we will help it secure and develop itself. We must consistently send these two messages.
And also, we are providing, you know, a nuclear power plant in the north, two light water systems, so some 4 or 5 billion dollars we are providing to meet with North Korean requests on the condition North Korea will not produce a nuclear weapon.
President Trump and I have a common goal - that is the complete dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In the process of working toward that common goal, the friendship and trust between the two of us will be very important. I hope we will be able to show the world that the collaboration between our two countries is strong and will continue to grow stronger.
We need an effective American diplomacy that will marshall the resources of nations in the Asian Pacific Rim to put pressure on North Korea, on Kim Jong-un, to abandon his nuclear ambitions. It has to remain the policy of the United States of America, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, plain and simple.
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