Europe might have a strategy for limiting North Korea’s nukes

In contrast to Washington, the EU has adopted a different stance towards North Korea over the past decade, which encompasses critical engagement while encouraging the regime to change. The EU has put its money where its mouth is, with almost €500 million of assistance over this period.

Crisis in North Korea: it’s going nuclear, Tribune, uk, , With Korea on the brink Europe could have a key role to play in defusing a ticking time bomb, by Glyn Ford , May 28th, 2010 No one can be unaware of the ongoing standoff on the Korean Peninsula that threatens to become a global crisis with weapons of mass destruction available to both sides. There are neo-conservative voices in Washington who would see an Iraq-style solution with enforced regime change. Others close to Barack Obama’s administration have practiced a policy of what Pyongyang sees as malign neglect that has left North Korea isolated and off the global agenda. The result has been that the North Koreans have engaged in a series of provocative actions with missile launches, nuclear tests and armed clashes…….

North Korea has twice tested plutonium-based nuclear weapons – first in October 2006 and then in April 2009. Both went off with more of a fizzle than a bang. The cores breaking up before the chain-reaction had fully gone to completion resulted in low yields, the first at one kiloton and the second a little bigger. While Pyongyang currently has only enough weapons grade plutonium for six to eight weapons, Washington’s recent refusal to recognise North Korea as a nuclear state in the context of the Non-Proliferation Treaty talks – despite the view of Mohamed El Baradei, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that North Korea is “a fully-fledged nuclear power” – is inevitably driving the country to test for a third time. Whether this is actually the Pentagon’s objective is not clear…..

So we have a ticking bomb. The Six-Party Talks, currently suspended, have not moved the world closer to a solution. Neither have bilateral sanctions, UN Security Council resolutions, nor threats to interdict North Korean vessels on the high seas. What might help is a bridge-building exercise by some group outside the usual participants. One candidate could be the European Union with its post-Lisbon Treaty enhanced foreign policy role and its new High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.

In contrast to Washington, the EU has adopted a different stance towards North Korea over the past decade, which encompasses critical engagement while encouraging the regime to change. The EU has put its money where its mouth is, with almost €500 million of assistance over this period.

Crisis in North Korea: it’s going nuclear « Tribune – Labour leadership gossip, news, features and comment from Britain’s left-wing magazine