Keep pressure on N Korea

The harsh words and wavering debate about North Korea that emerged from the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) are disconcerting. The foreign ministers of the US and Japan urged members of the Forum it is vital to keep tight sanctions on Pyongyang until there is clear progress towards what now is generally called denuclearisation. One voice, North Korea’s Ri Yong-ho, demanded relief from sanctions. But the forum quite properly decided his argument that Pyongyang deserves relief for showing good faith was unconvincing and invalid.

While the ARF finally came up with a stance on North Korea, it was needlessly wishy-washy. It took four days of intense haggling, and all the ministers had left the ARF meeting site in Singapore before a final statement was issued. It called on ARF member North Korea to “fulfil its stated commitment to complete denuclearisation and its pledge to refrain from further nuclear and missile tests”. There was no mention of sanctions at all, even though every member of ARF, except for North Korea of course, has pledged strongly to enforce all UN sanctions against the hermit kingdom.

The problem for many countries, in great irony, appears to be the spectacular June 12 meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jongun. Everything from that special summit was positive. In particular, Mr Kim pledged that his country was committed to denuclearisation. That is a big word with a simple meaning: No nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. But the devil’s in the details, and the Trump-Kim summit showed there can be progress. It’s just that up to now progress has been almost immeasurably small.

It is telling that what should have been a no-brainer for Asean and the other ARF members actually became a debate and diplomatic stumbling block. For the past 30 years, North Korea has routinely promised steps to disarm if the UN and members eased restrictions and provided aid to Pyongyang. Each time that occurred, North Korea went back on its word. The result is that the Pyongyang regime has a stockpile of nuclear weapons. It has, for the moment, halted tests of weapons of mass destruction and the intercontinental missiles that could conceivably deliver them. That’s the tiny advance that came from the Trump-Kim meeting. It is positive and deserves a very small cheer and round of applause.

That is because North Korea has made no promise or move to disarm. The tests have stopped for propaganda purposes, but more importantly because the nuclear weapons and the missiles work. There is no reason to test. This is no time to relax the punitive economic sanctions that have forced North Korea to these small steps, however important they are. Pyongyang remains an international threat, unsupervised by any outside regime such as the UN supervisors who monitor every other nuclear power.

Proof of that depressing fact came last week from the United Nations itself. A panel of experts appointed by the UN Security Council reported last week that North Korea continues to work on both its nuclear and missile programmes. This is not technically a breach of the US-Kim agreement.

But North Korea has undertaken a massive increase of smuggling, including offshore, ship-to-ship transfers of oil in order to bust the UN sanctions. The Kim regime has smuggled textiles through Thailand in order to earn foreign currency. And Pyongyang has embarked on a stronger programme than previously to try to sell weapons abroad, where “weapons” means just about everything the North makes, from rifles to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

All of this proves that North Korea will move to denuclearise and reduce international tension only under the most stringent pressure. Diplomatic and economic sanctions must stay until North Korea proposes or agrees to begin meaningful disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.