Seoul foresees weapons talks

South Korea is hopeful Pyongyang will open negotiations with the United States next year over its nuclear programme.

SEOUL: South Korea has predicted that North Korea will look to open negotiations with the United States over its weapons programmes next year and pursue at least some rapprochement with Seoul, in an optimistic government outlook for 2018.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously imposed new, tougher sanctions on North Korea last Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, a move the North branded an economic blockade and act of war.

“North Korea will seek negotiation with the United States, while continuing to pursue its effort to be recognised as a de facto nuclear-possessing country,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a report yesterday, without offering any reasons for its conclusion.

Tensions have risen over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes, which it pursues in defiance of years of UN Security Council resolutions, with bellicose rhetoric coming from both Pyongyang and the White House.

US diplomats have made it clear that they are seeking a diplomatic solution but President Donald Trump has derided talks as useless and said Pyongyang must commit to giving up its nuclear weapons before any talks can begin.

In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea’s foreign ministry said the United States was terrified by its nuclear force and was getting “more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest ever sanctions and pressure on our country”.

China, the North’s lone major ally, and Russia both supported the latest UN sanctions, while on Monday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying called for all countries to make constructive efforts to ease tension.

In its 2018 forecast, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it believed the North would eventually find ways to blunt the effects of the sanctions, which seek to limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.

“Countermeasures will be orchestrated to deal with the effects, including cuts in trade volume and foreign currency inflow, lack of supplies and reduced production in each part of the economy,” the report said.

The latest round of sanctions was prompted by the Nov 29 test of what North Korea said was an intercontinental ballistic missile that put the US mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

The Joongang Ilbo Daily newspaper, citing an unnamed South Korean government official, reported yesterday that North Korea could also be preparing to launch a satellite into space.

Experts have said such launches are likely aimed at further developing the North’s ballistic missile technology, and as such would be prohibited under UN resolutions.

The North Korean Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported on Monday that “peaceful space development is a legitimate right of a sovereign state”.

North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea, the United States and Japan, and says its weapons are necessary to counter US aggression.