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| US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln. © AFP=News1 © News1 Reporter Dongmyeong Woo |
While Joe Biden suggested that the new administration of the United States will review its approach to North Korea as a whole, attention is drawn to what specific policies will emerge in the future.
US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the 19th (local time) that “the Biden administration is willing to fully review its approach and policy toward North Korea.”
“No matter what we do with North Korea, we want to make sure that we are looking equally on humanitarian as well as on the security side.”
Nominee Blincoln’s mention of a “full review” is read as a willingness to radically change the approach to North Korea in the past President Donald Trump. It is expected that the North Korean nuclear issue will be solved with a practical’bottom-up’ (bottom-up) or’step-up’ approach rather than a Trump-style top-down (top-down) approach.
The question is whether or not Blincoln’s nominee will succeed the’Singapore agreement’ between President Trump and North Korean Labor Party general secretary Kim Jong-un.
In the past, nominee Blincoln insisted that President Trump’s solution to denuclearization should be thoroughly reviewed, and insisted on a so-called’Iranian solution’ that maximizes North Korea’s concessions step by step.
Accordingly, it respects the aspect of strengthening trust between the two leaders of North America and the agreement of Singapore as a gateway to denuclearization, but it is observed that the specific methodology may be very difficult for the North.
President Moon Jae-in also at a press conference on the 18th, expressing the 2018 North American Summit in Singapore as a “excellent agreement,” hoping the Biden administration will succeed.
Meanwhile, on that day, nominee Blingen emphasized’humanitarian’ support. The Korean government also has a perception that support for North Korea or inter-Korean cooperation should be achieved as much as’humanitarian issues’ away from a political or military perspective.
This seems to be a positive momentum for the ROK and the United States to keep pace with North Korea policies to improve relations between North and South Korea.
It is also of interest that additional messages to North Korea will emerge in the inauguration speech of Biden, which will follow on the 20th (local time) following the hearing of Blincoln nominee. Specifically, even if’North Korea’ and’North Korean nuclear’ are not mentioned, it is highly likely that a comprehensive nuclear security-related pledge will be mentioned.
Candidate Biden pledged to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation (NPT) system, renegotiate the new strategic arms reduction agreement, and ratify the nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT). It is expected to show its intention to pacify the international order of nuclear weapons in the international community by realigning the nuclear disarmament system.
It is noteworthy how North Korea reads these early messages of the inauguration of the new US administration. North Korea has never reported or commented on it since the US presidential election in November.
However, at the 8th Congress of the Labor Party held earlier this month, North Korea declared that it is a nuclear power, demanded the US to withdraw its hostile policy, and announced the strategy of the’Gangdaegang Ancestral Line’. Nevertheless, at the party congress commemorative parade ceremony, the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which is a strategic guided weapon in the U.S. continent, did not appear.
This strategy of North Korea is interpreted as passing over to the United States, saying that North Korea will not stimulate the United States and will respond accordingly depending on how the United States emerges in the future.