North Korea talks key to solution

The UN’s response to the latest provocation by North Korea — its intercontinental ballistic missile launches on July 3 and 27 — has been prompt, with the UN Security Council unanimously approving tough new sanctions on Pyongyang.

UN resolution 2371, with the expected condemnation “in the strongest terms”, bans coal and other exports worth upwards of $1bn, as well as new joint ventures and additional foreign investment in existing ones. The sanctions will bite deep. A $1bn cut in export revenues means Pyongyang will possibly lose a third of what it earned in 2016.

But no matter how tough the sanctions are, on their own, they will not be enough to achieve a lasting settlement of the peninsula nuclear issue. Nor will the use of force, as some are proposing, resolve the issue; it will only make the situation worse. What is needed is for all parties involved to come back to the negotiation table to hammer out a deal that can finally bring peace and stability to the potentially volatile region.

That is why the call in the UN resolution for the long-shelved six-party talks to be restarted should be lauded and supported by the international community. Given what has happened in the previous talks involving North Korea, South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia, it would be naive to expect such talks to achieve anything substantial in the short term. But it should be borne in mind that it was amid previous dialogues among the six that progress was made on the issue, and it was only when the talks stopped that the situation threatened to get out of hand.

For the resumption of the six-party talks, China proposes that North Korea suspend its nuclear and missile programme and the US its military drills, which is the most realistic and reasonable way to decrease tensions and pave the way for all parties to return to the negotiation table. Beijing, August 7.