Global Security Newswire

The United States' cautious approach toward the new regime in North Korea could have the unintended effect of leading to a third nuclear weapons test in the Stalinist nation, a former U.S. State Department official wrote on Monday (see GSN, Feb. 7).

The White House conducted two sets of nuclear talks with North Korea in 2011 and was understood late last year to be engaged in bilateral discussions on a deal to provide food aid in exchange for Pyongyang's pledge to halt uranium enrichment. However, the unexpected death of longtime dictator Kim Jong Il in December led the Obama administration to adopt a "wait-and-see" approach toward the successor government of the dictator's son, Kim Jong Un, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

"This failure to be more proactive is likely to end in a different kind of bad news -- another nuclear test," Ploughshares Fund Executive Director Philip Yun said in a commentary carried by The Hill newspaper.

The State Department's point man for East Asian policy, Kurt Campbell, recently acknowledged the Obama administration had little concrete information about the goings-on in North Korea.

"Just as a policy of fostering regime change is not tenable, a seemingly reasonable wait-and-see/status quo approach is also inadequate. It could sow the seeds for yet another nuclear test in 2013, which could lead to engineering advances that allow the totalitarian North to produce smaller (and more) nuclear warheads," said Yun, who from 1994 to 2001 served as a State Department senior adviser and North Korea specialist.

North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests to date.

In addition to being motivated by the technical gains that would come from another test, Pyongyang could also choose to detonate a third nuclear device as a demonstration of new leader Kim Jong Un's martial strength.

"Rather than reading tea leaves about the future, we need a solid grip on the present. Let's focus on the real and urgent, seriously probing North Korea's new leadership for facts -- and prevent yet another nuclear test," Yun said (Lee Chi-dong, Yonhap News Agency, Feb. 7).

Separately, South Korea and Russia are scheduled to hold bilateral talks on Wednesday on how to relaunch the frozen diplomatic process aimed at irreversible North Korean denuclearization, ITAR-Tass reported.

Russia and South Korea are participants in the six-nation nuclear negotiations that also include China, Japan, North Korea and the United States. Talks were last held in December 2008. The principal obstacle to the resumption of negotiations is Pyongyang's refusal to accept  preconditions set down by Seoul and Washington, including that the North first halt its uranium enrichment work.

South Korean envoy to the six-nation talks Lim Sung-nam is to meet with Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov in Moscow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently said he could see the six-party talks resuming before July (ITAR-Tass, Feb. 8).