Expert′s View: Fmr. State Dept. official Joel Wit on N. Korea 조엘위트 인터뷰

Where is North Korea headed with its nuclear program and what should the U.S. do about it? For an expert′s view, I spoke with Joel Wit, senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, who currently runs the 38 North website... and served as an official at the State Department for 15 years. Have a look. "In his New Year′s speech, Kim Jong-un expressed his desire to mend ties with South Korea, he even suggested an inter-Korean summit but at the same time, he made clear he has no plans to end Pyongyang′s nuclear program and demanded an end to the joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises. So how do you assess his speech?" "Well, I think it would be right to be very cautious in our assessment of what he said. He did offer that olive branch but there are lot of conditions that are attached. The bigger issue here is that there is not going to be any resolution to the nuclear problem without an active American involvement in solving this whole problem and right now, the U.S. administration really isn′t involved at all." "In less than two months, South Korea and the U.S. will be conducting their joint military drills, if the Korea′s don′t make any progress by then, do you expect to see North Korea launch another provocation?" "Once again, you are asking me to make a prediction and so what I would say is that at the moment, there is no sign at least of preparations for a long range missile test or even a nuclear test. Whether they would launch other types of provocations, I really don′t know but I would point out that experts repeatedly predict provocations, and are wrong most of the time." "Given North Korea′s steady progress in building up its nuclear capabilities, what steps should the United States and its allies take this year to cope with Pyongyang′s nuclear threats?" "I think it′s very clear, at least to me, that American policy is in disarray and our coordination with South Korea in order to have the maximum effect on the North is not very good. The first step here is that in Washington, we need to conduct a full scale review of American policy towards North Korea. The chances of success maybe not so great but nevertheless, the way we are approaching this problem now has clearly failed. I′m talking about a full scale review that looks at not only the diplomatic track and what might and might not be possible there, but also a more reasonable measure and an effective approach on sanctions and also looking at the trends over the next five years in North Korea′s WMD programs and making sure that we take the security steps necessary to protect ourselves." "So do you foresee a shift in Washington′s policy towards Pyongyang in the coming months?" "I′m very skeptical. I think the administration has other issues that it′s focused on and also I think the administration has basically given up on trying to deal with North Korea aside from occasionally slapping sanctions on