North Korea angers US

U.S. President Barack Obama

In the wake of North Korea’s stakes-raising rocket launch this week, the United States is expected to seek harsher financial measures on the Kim Jong-un regime, similar to those mobilized on Iran.

But in the longer term, Washington faces tough choices on how to handle Pyongyang given what analysts describe as a death of viable policy options. The launch Wednesday amplified concern that the North could soon develop the capacity to target the United States with a long-range nuclear weapon.

Washington diplomats are ramping up tough language. “We are committed to working together to send North Korea an unmistakable message,” U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Sung Kim said in an entry on the embassy’s blog, promising “consequences” for the launch that breached UN Security Council resolutions over the nuclear weapons program.

Following the North’s failed launch in April, the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) adopted a statement that stipulated taking “action accordingly in the event of a further launch or nuclear test,” which officials here saw as trigger for new sanctions.

Photo shows the Unha-3 carrier rocket lifting off from a launch pad at a site in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province in North Korea, Wednesday. / Yonhap

Measures could include those to enable greater ability to inspect North Korean ships suspected of illegally transporting weapons or components and adding to the list of North Korean entities under existing sanctions. Washington could also lead international efforts to target foreign banks dealing with Pyongyang.

Beyond this Washington is limited, analysts say, as the latest launch reiterates the Kim regime’s will to continue its weapons development at its own pace and despite clear signals to stop from Beijing, its closest ally.

The problem, the watchers say, is that while the North demands normalization of the diplomatic relations with Washington, it is more than unlikely to denuclearize for that. The intensification of the military threat, however, may in the long run force the United States to rethink its approach.

“The frame of the negotiation has changed,” Bong Young-shik, analyst with the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, said. “It is up to the United States, whether it would agree upon both things, acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear power and giving it diplomatic normalization. The dual nature of the demand puts Washington in a very difficult position.”

Through bilateral talks and multilateral forums, elements such as financial support and normalization of ties have been on the table at times since the Bill Clinton administration, in return for denuclearization. But with pledges by presidential candidates here to test reengagement, many suspect that sooner or later parties will attempt to return to some form of talks.

Opinions are mixed on the prospects of negotiations, but most are cautious.

“There is a window of opportunity to bring North Korea’s neighbors together in a coordinated approach designed to cap North Korea’s threat capacity, ease its isolation, and give a non-nuclear North Korea a respectable role in the international order,” said Scott Snyder, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations. “I hope Northeast Asia’s new leaders are up to addressing this challenge.”

Nicholas Eberstadt, an expert in political economy at the American Enterprise Institute, however, said negotiations would be but heavily constrained by Pyongyang’s goals.

“The problem is that what we are offering are not things that are attractive to the North Korean state,” he said.

“Access to international markets? If you have a state that thinks it will be undone by what it calls ideological and cultural infiltration, you don’t want to have increased trade with the outside world because it is subversive to your system. Offering that is like offering ammonia. It’s poison.” <The Korea Times/Kim Young-jin>