Sanctions could be eased sooner: Seoul

Japan confronts alliance risks

SEOUL, June 18, (Agencies): South Korea said Monday that sanctions against North Korea could be eased once it takes “substantive steps towards denuclearisation”, seemingly setting the bar lower than Washington for such a move.

Last week’s Singapore summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un produced only a vague statement in which Kim “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”.

Amid fears the summit would weaken the international coalition against the North’s nuclear programme, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed after the meeting that sanctions would remain in place until North Korea’s complete denuclearisation.

But his South Korean counterpart suggested Monday they could be eased sooner.

“Our stance is that the sanctions must remain in place until North Korea takes meaningful, substantive steps towards denuclearisation,” Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told reporters.

Seoul and Washington shared the same “big picture” view and would continue close consultations, she added.

The comments come just days after China’s foreign ministry suggested that the UN Security Council could consider easing the economic punishment of its Cold War-era ally.

Any reduction in tensions on its doorstep is welcome for China, North Korea’s closest ally, which accounts for around 90 percent of Pyongyang’s trade.

The same goes for the South’s dovish President Moon Jae-in, who supports engagement with North Korea and held his own summit with Kim in April.

Until recently Trump had pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign — with both China and South Korea on board — of tough rhetoric and tightened sanctions against Pyongyang.

But analysts say the Singapore summit has made it hard for the Trump administration to return to that policy even if its current diplomacy with North Korea proves to be a failure.

Kang

Meeting

“The symbolism of the meeting ensures that the maximum pressure campaign has peaked,” said Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea Studies at the US Council on Foreign Relations, in a commentary.

“In practice, China and South Korea will push for relaxation of economic pressure on North Korea,” he added.

South Korea and the United States are expected to announce the suspension of “large-scale” military drills this week, with the provision that they would restart if North Korea failed to keep its promise to denuclearise, news agency Yonhap said on Sunday.

Citing an unnamed government source, the South Korean news agency said the suspension was likely to affect only major joint exercises, not more routine military training.

US President Trump surprised officials in Seoul and Washington when he pledged to end “war games” after his summit with North Korean leader Kim in Singapore last week.

Immediately after the announcement, US forces in Korea said they had received no guidance on stopping any drills, and South Korean officials said they were trying to figure out which exercises Trump was referring to.

However, in a sign Seoul may be open to suspending drills, South Korean President Moon Jaein said on Thursday his government would need to be flexible when it came to applying military pressure on North Korea if it was sincere about denuclearisation.

Meanwhile, eighteen months after Trump became US president and started shaking up global diplomacy, Japan is waking up to the risks of an alliance based on dollars and deals rather than shared values and security interests.

For decades, US and Japanese leaders have stressed that the two countries’ alliance was based on values such as democracy, freedom and the rule of law. One of Asia’s oldest security relationships, it placed Japan under a US defence umbrella.

Leader

Trump’s summit last week with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un failed to address Japanese security concerns such as a missile programme that Tokyo sees as a direct threat. Japan’s defence establishment was also taken aback by the US president saying he would halt “expensive” military exercises with South Korea that have long been seen in Tokyo as a deterrent to North Korea’s threats.

“The alliance has changed from one based on shared values to a transactional alliance,” Katsuyuki Kawai, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmaker who advises Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on foreign affairs, told Reuters.

“That is the reality now,” he said, stressing that this was his personal view, not that of the government.

Kawai said he was most surprised by the fact Trump cited cost as the reason for halting the joint exercises, long considered by Washington as vital to deter Pyongyang’s threats.

“I think this summit will serve as a trigger for the Japanese people to begin to realise that it is risky to leave Japan’s destiny to another country,” he added.

Abe, who has spoken with Trump face-to-face or by telephone dozens of times including days before the US-North Korea summit, has put a brave face on the president’s meeting with Kim, characterising it as a first step toward denuclearisation.

On Saturday, in an interview with a private TV broadcaster, Abe stressed that Kim had promised “complete denuclearisation” and that the president had conveyed directly to the North Korean leader Abe’s insistence on the need to resolve the matter of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by Pyongyang.