On 2 May, as part of its Korean Security Programme, the Institute held a timely one-day workshop at Arundel House to address the current dispute concerning North Korea’s nuclear activities and to anticipate how growing tensions on and around the Korean Peninsula might be resolved.
Organised by Senior Fellow for East Asian Security and Editor of Strategic Comments Adam Ward, and Director of Studies and Senior Fellow for Non-proliferation Dr Gary Samore, the off-the-record workshop involved some 50 diplomats, analysts, parliamentarians and officials from North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and European Union institutions. The workshop was the product of a year of initiatives, beginning with Adam Ward’s May 2002 week-long visit to Pyongyang, to deepen contacts with North Korean officials and make them aware of the value of the IISS as an independent forum in which officials and analysts can meet outside of formal channels to exchange views and think creatively about pressing strategic issues.
The North Korean delegation, which visited the United Kingdom at the invitation of the IISS, was led by Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon. Other members of the delegation sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs included Ri Byong Gap, Vice-Director of the European Department, and Kim Song Gyong, Section Chief of the European Department. This marked the first visit to Europe by a senior North Korean official since the crisis surrounding North Korea’s pursuit of a clandestine uranium-enrichment programme broke in October 2002, precipitating Pyongyang’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and throwing the 1994 Agreed Framework into terminal disarray.It was also the first overseas visit by a senior North Korean official since April’s trilateral talks in Beijing between the United States, North Korea and China, and therefore marked an excellent opportunity to take stock of the latest diplomatic initiatives. Vice-Foreign Minister Choe used the opportunity of his visit to schedule ministerial meetings with counterparts at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, all of whom also attended the IISS workshop, as well as to formally open – amid considerable media interest – the North Korean embassy in London.
The opening workshop session, chaired by Gary Samore, featured two keynote addresses. Vice-Foreign Minister Choe offered a critical appraisal of the current direction of North Korea relations with European Union members and institutions, urging them to play a greater role in strategic affairs affecting the Korean Peninsula and to deepen forms of economic and technical assistance. In his remarks Bill Rammell MP, UK Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, stressed that while European countries were willing to help draw North Korea out of its isolation, this was contingent on a resolution of the nuclear crisis. For its part, the United Kingdom was inclined to cooperate, but also was willing to confront North Korea with others in the absence of progress on the nuclear issue.
The second session addressed the nuclear issue in greater depth and from a number of contrasting perspectives. Vice-Foreign Minister Choe traced the evolution of the current crisis as seen from Pyongyang, and voiced his expectation that Washington would respond favourably to proposals put to James Kelly, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, during his talks in Beijing with North Korean negotiator Li Gun. Glyn Ford, Member of the European Parliament, highlighted the manner in which, from a European perspective, both Washington and Pyongyang had mishandled their relationship through the last decade and suggested pointers for the future. In his presentation, Henry Sokolsky of the Washington-based Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre assessed North Korea's likely nuclear capabilities and the potential implications of its nuclear ‘breakout’ for the global non proliferation regime. Joel Wit, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies with long direct experience of US–North Korea negotiations, addressed the considerable technical difficulties that would surround nuclear verification and inspection efforts, even if it proved politically possible to arrive at a new agreement providing for such measures.
The workshop then moved on to discuss the economic dimension of security on the Korean Peninsula. Bradley Babson, a Senior Advisor to the World Bank, analysed North Korea's economic conditions and Pyongyang's recent reform initiatives, while Kim Song Gyong called for greater outside economic assistance and investment. Aidan Foster-Carter, Honorary Senior Fellow in Modern Korea at Leeds University, set out the prospective impact of the current nuclear dispute on North Korea's international economic relations. The final session of the workshop featured a wide-ranging panel discussion entitled ‘The Way Ahead’, and included presentations by Ri Byong Gap; Dr Ronald F. Lehman, Director of the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Dr Rosalind Marsden, Director for Asia–Pacific at the FCO; and Dr James Hoare, former British Charge d’Affairés in Pyongyang.
