Crisis in Korea

SIR – While the nation’s attention in the past few months has quite understandably been on Brexit, the crisis in Korea has not gone away.

On and around the Korean peninsula we now have two nuclear powers facing each other. The North Koreans have their growing nuclear arsenal. The Americans have at least two carrier groups, which are armed with goodness knows what, off the Korean coast and commanded by an untested president. The central problem is that the stand-off comprises two nations, one hectoring the other, and the other enjoying the sight and sound of its own bravado.

The danger of a miscalculation is obvious and will remain so as long as the so-called peace process is conducted bilaterally, with neither side prepared to accept anything which looked remotely like defeat.

The discussion must as soon as possible be put on a multilateral basis with the North Koreans bringing the Chinese, Pakistanis and Iranians to the table and the Americans taking the British, Indians and French with them; it might also be wise to invite one or two non-nuclear countries such as Germany, Japan, perhaps South Africa and, of course, South Korea.

There must be no patronising by the West nor, for that matter, should there be fear. It will all take time because what we really need is a semipermanent nuclear peacemaking body which has worldwide respect and which incidentally might be adapted for other policy areas, such as international banking.

For the time being it is enough to give priority to the North Korean issue. We are, after all, looking at the possible destruction of our planet. Lord Spicer

London SW1