International Relations

1. U.S.-North Korea Relations

2. Group Participants:
 Ayesha Siddiki (Roll no. 101)
 Mayesha Zerin Khan Deesha (Roll no. 106)
 MD. Golam Robbani Rana (Roll no. 118)
 MD. Abu-Hanif (Roll no. 120)
 Alok Ranjon Sardar ( Roll no. 121)
 Pranto Sarker (Roll no. 124)
 MD. Abdur Rahman (Roll no. 125)
 Abuj Halder (Roll no. 130)
 MD. Atiqul Haque Tuhin (Roll no. 137)
 Mostafizur Rahman (Roll no. 143)

3. Introduction
 Relations between North Korea and the United States have been historically
tense and hostile. The two countries have no formal diplomatic relations.
Instead, they have adopted an indirect diplomatic arrangement using neutral
intermediaries.
 North Korea’s advancement towards nuclear weapon and missile
capabilities since 2016 has made it a matter of concern for U.S. interest in
East Asia. For U.S., North Korea is a direct threat to U.S. Homeland.
 That is why U.S. policy towards North Korea has been influenced primarily
on the North Korea’s (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) nuclear
weapon and missile programs.

4.  This presentation will focus US-North Korea relations through historical
perspectives (from1980s-present).
 For present status, particularly the Biden administration will be observed
through three lenses:
1. Shades of Denuclearization
2. Beyond Denuclearization
3. Where to next?

5. 1980s-early 1990s
 In December 1985, North Korea joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons.
 In 1991, following the end of the Cold War, President H.W. Bush
authorized the withdrawal of most U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from South
Korea.
 The U.S. and South Korea announced the cancellation of their annual
“Team Spirit” joint military exercises.
 Concerned about North Korea’s nascent nuclear ambitions, the Bush
administration began to open up diplomatic communication channels with
Pyongyang.

6. The Agreed Framework (1994-2003):
 On October 21, 1994, the U.S. and North Korea signed the Agreed
Framework, which called for North Korea to freeze and eventually
dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security and energy
guarantees, and for the two countries to move toward normalized political
and economic relations. In return, the U.S. pledged to provide North Korea
with two light-water reactors for generating electricity by 2003, and to
supply it with 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in the interim.
 However, The Agreed Framework finally broke down in 2003, and North
Korea subsequently began developing an operational uranium enrichment
capacity.

7. The Perry Process (1999-2000):
 In late-1998, the Clinton administration appointed former Secretary
of Defense William Perry to conduct a comprehensive review of U.S.
policy toward North Korea. Perry, with significant help from South
Korean President Kim Dae-jung, managed to put the two countries
back on the road to reconciliation.
 It was a burst of high-level diplomacy and an accompanying warming
of North-South relations following the first inter-Korean summit in
June 2000.

8. Bush and the “Axis of Evil” (2001-
2003):
 After taking office in 2001, President George W. Bush pursued a harder
line toward Pyongyang, inducting North Korea into the infamous “axis of
evil” along with Iran and Iraq, and imposing tough new sanctions against
the nation.
 The relationship between the two countries deteriorated further after a leak
of the administration’s classified Nuclear Posture Review, which revealed
that North Korea was one of seven countries identified as potential nuclear
targets in the event of the outbreak of hostilities. Kim Jong Il roundly
condemned this revelation as a blatant violation of previous U.S. security
assurances and declared Pyongyang’s renewed interest in the acquisition of
defensive nuclear capabilities.

9.  The Bush administration, however, continued to press for a “complete,
verifiable, irreversible dismantlement” (CVID) of North Korea’s nuclear
program as a precondition to negotiations of any kind. The two countries
were once again at a seemingly insurmountable impasse.
 The Six-Party Talks (2003-2009):
 Multilateral negotiations between China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South
Korea, and the United States.

10. Strategic Patience and Failed Leap Day
Deal (2009-2017):
 Under Obama administration, U.S. pursued a policy of “strategic patience”
in an attempt to break the pattern of “provocation, extortion, and reward” in
U.S.-North Korea diplomacy.
 However, Kim Jong Il’s successor, Kim Jong Un, remained committed to
the so-called Leap Day deal, which was announced on February 29, 2012.
North Korea then launched a satellite for what it said was peaceful
purposes. The U.S. considered the launch a violation of the agreement,
effectively killing the deal.

11. Maximum Pressure Under the Trump
Administration (2017):
 In its first year in office, the Trump administration announced a commitment to
replace “the failed policy of strategic patience” with a tougher “maximum
pressure” strategy to ratchet up sanctions and increase isolation against North
Korea.
 In August 2017, following intelligence reports that North Korea may have
developed the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, Trump stated that
if North Korea continued its threats against the United States, it would “be met with
fire and fury like the world has never seen.” In a subsequent address to the UN
General Assembly, Trump said that if the U.S. “is forced to defend itself or its allies,
we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Two months later, North
Korea successfully tested the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile.

12. The Singapore Summit (2018):
 In January 2018, Kim Jong Un declared North Korea’s nuclear arsenal
“complete” and accepted South Korea’s proposal to participate in the 2018
Winter Olympics in South Korea.
 North Korea’s participation in the Olympics led to a series of inter-Korean
dialogue.
 The Trump-Kim summit on June 12 in Singapore marked the first meeting
between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea, producing a joint
statement pledging to improve relations and create a lasting peace regime,
along with a commitment by the North to “work toward complete
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

13. Post-Singapore Summit:
 After the summit, North Korea began to dismantle a missile-engine test site
and returned 55 cases of remains of U.S. soldiers.
 The U.S. continued to maintain that sanctions would remain intact until
North Korea denuclearized, while North Korea insisted on the
normalization of political and economic relations or end enmity and
reconcile, starting with an end-of-war declaration and some easing of or
exemptions from U.S. sanctions.
 Although a declaration ending the Korean War and a denuclearization deal
appeared imminent, the second summit between the United States and
North Korea in Hanoi ended abruptly and without any agreement.

14. Biden administration
 Like its predecessors, the full content of the administration’s policy review
will likely remain classified.
 The Biden administration alluded to the Panmunjom Declaration and the
Singapore Joint Statement in order to bring North Korea back to the
negotiating table and avoid creating a fissure in the US-ROK alliance.
Simply put, the Biden administration does not want DPRK issues to
adversely affect the US-ROK alliance.
 U.S. policy towards North Korea can be viewed through three different
facts:
a. Shades of denuclearization
b. Beyond denuclearization
c. Where to next?

15. Shades of denuclearization
 White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on April 30,2021 clarified that the
administration’s desired end state “remains the complete denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula.”
 Biden offers continuity with his predecessors going back to former president
Bill Clinton, whose administration adopted “denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula” as the basis for U.S. policy on North Korea.
 Unlike former U.S. president, Donald Trump, whose administration sought
the “final, fully and verified denuclearization” of North Korea, the new
formulation simply prefixes this common term with “complete.”

16.  More recently and most importantly, “complete denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula” is the phrase that appears in the June 2018 joint
statement from the Singapore summit—the sole U.S.–North Korea
document that bears Kim Jong Un’s signature.
 The administration’s decision to frame its policy around this phrase suggests
a preference for incremental change in the U.S. approach.
 The Biden administration used this phrase and “denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula” interchangeably in February and March 2021, but it
appears now to have settled on terminology that augurs better for
prospective diplomacy.

17. Beyond Denuclearization
 Psaki emphasized that the new policy “calls for a calibrated, practical
approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with North Korea.”
 Ever since
i. the 2002 collapse of the Agreed Framework,
ii. the Clinton administration’s 1994 deal with Pyongyang that froze
plutonium production, and
iii. North Korea’s decisive exit from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) in early 2003,
 three successive U.S. administrations have found it difficult to abandon
the perfect total North Korean disarmament in search of the good.
 As a result, the boldest component of the new policy appears to be its
acknowledgment that desirable improvements to U.S. and allied security
are possible short of North Korea’s complete disarmament.

18.  Biden administration deserves credit for not entirely succumbing to these
skeptical voices and carefully leaving the door ajar for a phased, open-
ended, and piecemeal approach to managing the growing dangers of North
Korea’s ever more complex nuclear capabilities.
 If negotiations resume, the administration appears to envision offering some
sanctions relief in exchange for steps towards denuclearization.
 Though the retention of the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”
language implies a nonproliferation framing for U.S. policy, the Biden
administration implicitly appears to be acknowledging that the burdens of
nuclear deterrence with North Korea demand practical risk reduction.

19. Where to Next?
 Kim outlined a dramatically ambitious plan for nuclear and conventional
military modernization early 2021.
 North Korea has resumed the testing of ballistic missiles and is likely to
continue doing so through the rest of this year—not exclusively or primarily
to prod the Biden administration but to advance its capabilities in ways that
it feels necessary for its own deterrence needs.
 In 2022, Kim declared North Korea will never denuclearize. North Korea
also has continued to test missiles of various ranges and capabilities,
including 80 ballistic missiles since the start of 2022, in violation of U.N.
Security Council (UNSC) requirements.

20.  Again in 2022, North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) for the first time since 2017.
 President Joe Biden stressed that a North Korean nuclear attack on the US
and its allies would be the end of Kim Jong Un’s regime as he announced
new efforts with South Korea to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear build up.
 According to Us officials, they have communicated to North Korea and
declared their willingness to meet without preconditions, and that the ball is
in Pyongyang’s court.

21.  In 2023, a solid-fuel ICBM was tested by North Korea.
 However, in early 2023, the Biden administration appointed a special envoy
for North Korea human rights, subject to senate confirmation.
 Even more recently on August 22, 2023, North Korea slammed South Korea
and the US for staging military exercises and warned that the drills could
trigger an unprecedented “thermonuclear war.”
 North Korea media state the country’s military “ will wait for the time” to
“punish the hostile forces,”

22. Concluding remarks
 There is no doubt that North Korea is advancing its nuclear weapon
capabilities both quantitatively and qualitatively through unabated missile
testing and fissile material production.
 At the same time US is failing at improving diplomatic relations and
enhancing understanding with North Korea. Today, there is almost no
diplomatic engagement with North Korea. If North Korea’s capabilities
have become intractable, then it is crucial that Washington intensify it’s
efforts to mitigate North Korea’s negative intent.
 Since Pyongyang is insecure, isolated and impoverished but also nuclear
armed, hard-line elements should not be prioritized in dealing with them
rather openness to dialogue should be practiced.

23. Thank you