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Rocket launch on North Korean television: no escalation yet
Photo: JEON HEON-KYUN / EPA-EFE
“We're not trying to provoke North Korea.
We're just asking them to do what they've promised us. ”As simple as this statement by Bill Clinton in 1994 sounds, it is difficult to really get North Korea to nuclear disarmament.
Pyongyang has committed itself to this several times, and agreements have failed several times.
Today the regime is more dangerous than ever.
Like his predecessors, US President Joe Biden is faced with the question: What is the best strategy to get the current ruler from the Kim dynasty to abandon his nuclear weapons program?
The pressure is growing to find an answer soon.
Observers urge the new US administration to act to keep the initiative and not react to provocations from North Korea.
It was announced on Wednesday that North Korea had fired two short-range missiles from its west coast over the weekend.
It is the first weapon test since April last year.
For a start, President Biden reacted calmly: "Not much has changed for us."
Fired cruise missiles: a warning, not an escalation
According to high-ranking US officials, the cruise missiles fired do not violate the ban of the United Nations, so experts do not yet see the launch as an escalation.
But it is a signal that North Korea could put increasing pressure on it.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin felt this last week on their East Asia trip.
Not only were they received by friendly high officials in Tokyo and Seoul, but they also received a message from Kim Yo Jong, sister of the North Korean dictator.
Like his grandfather and father, Kim Jong Un likes to see himself high on the political agenda.
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Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong: powerful confidants
Photo: POOL New / REUTERS
The US government should be careful not to "spread the smell of gunpowder over our country," warned Kim Yo Jong.
"If you want to sleep soundly for the next four years, you shouldn't make a fuss right at the beginning."
Following a threat from their mouths, the regime blew up a joint liaison office between North and South Korea last year.
Kim Yo Jong has no formal position in the Politburo, but is considered a powerful confidante of her brother.
The message referred to the military exercises that had just been held by the USA and South Korea, but it was also to be understood as the first warning in principle - that the North Korean regime is becoming impatient and can go into confrontation.
USA are taking first steps, North Korea is also blocking and rejecting
Biden's predecessors had to find out: Barack Obama had not even been in office for three months when North Korea fired a long-range missile, Donald Trump only stayed three weeks in the Oval Office until the first test of a medium-range missile.
Foreign Minister Blinken said in Seoul what policy to pursue towards North Korea will be decided in the coming weeks.
Whether more pressure, probably in the form of sanctions, or diplomacy - all options would be on the table.
"We are open."
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Advances from the Biden government: North Korea wants to ignore attempts by the USA to make contact
His officials have already taken the first diplomatic steps: They have tried to contact North Korean government representatives through various channels - without receiving an answer.
North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui described the efforts as a "cheap trick to buy time."
Blockade and rejection, however, are part of the North Korean repertoire.
Robert Carlin, who was involved in negotiations with Pyongyang for the United States on several occasions, describes the attitude as follows: “North Korea repeats the word 'impossible' until talks seem like a waste of time, but at some point, the deeper you get into the negotiations, the more it becomes The impossible, often suddenly possible. "
Pyongyang is demanding greater concessions from the Americans and, again and again, vaguely an "end to hostile American policy."
But it is unlikely that the US will simply relax sanctions or even withdraw its soldiers from South Korea.
There are currently 28,500 US military personnel stationed in the country.
All of a sudden, torture and violence were brought up again
The fact that the new administration in Washington is not prepared to ignore the issue of human rights as it did under Trump is likely to cause tension.
During his trip to East Asia, Blinken criticized the "systematic and comprehensive" human rights violations of the "repressive government" of North Korea.
Non-governmental organizations repeatedly document how cruelly the regime treats those it considers unloyalty: torture, sexualised violence and brutal punishments in prisons.
The labor camps appear to be expanding, according to the DailyNK website, which has sources in North Korea.
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Foreign ministers meeting in Seoul: US representative Blinken with his South Korean colleague Chung
Photo: YONHAP / POOL / EPA
On the nuclear issue, the US now wants to use alliances to influence Pyongyang economically and politically.
Blinken is struggling to mend the relationship with South Korea and Japan, which suffered under Trump.
"Katchi Kapshida" is the slogan with which the USA and South Korea like to conjure up their decades-old alliance, which means "together we are strong".
Under Trump it became an empty phrase.
Relations between allies in the region remain strained to this day - but they are important for a consistent approach to Pyongyang.
From Washington's point of view, China ideally shares this pressure.
Blinken therefore urges Beijing to use its influence on North Korea - the People's Republic supports the Kim regime and helps circumvent sanctions.
But already at the first meeting between Beijing's representatives and the new US government in Alaska there was an open dispute.
As if to strengthen the fronts, Kim Jong Un called on Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday to strengthen cohesion in order to confront "enemy forces" together.
In principle, North Korea does not seem to rule out a dialogue with the USA - this can be read from the messages that are currently coming from Pyongyang.
But the weekend's missile tests are an unmistakable warning.
Negotiations with North Korea, another lesson that many US presidents have learned, are never easy.
