South Korea made a formal request for talks Monday.
Faced with a North Korea that seems both increasingly unpredictable and increasingly militarily capable, South Korea’s new government has made a formal proposal: It’s time for new talks.
Suh Choo-suk, South Korea’s vice defense minister, announced the proposal Monday, suggesting that the two neighboring nations could meet in the border village of Panmunjom to discuss military and humanitarian issues. If the North agrees (it so far has issued no response) , it would be the first talk between the two governments since 2015.
The news comes in the wake of a number of key developments in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — including, most shockingly, the July 4 launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit Alaska. But talks have long been touted as an option for South Korea’s liberal new president, Moon Jae-in, when it comes to dealing with the North.
“I will meet Kim Jong Un when preconditions of resolving the nuclear issue are assured, ” Moon told The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield and Yoonjung Seo in May, days before he entered office.
Will a policy of dialogue work? Right now, that’s impossible to say, but Moon’s push for it comes down to three stark reasons.
1. Any military conflict with North Korea would be disastrous for the South
Internationally, a lot of attention is paid to North Korea’s nuclear weapons and its advancing missile technology. The fear is that once North Korea has the ability to launch a nuclear weapon that could target the mainland United States, it would be a major deterrent against any future military action.
But for Seoul, the deterrent is already there. South Korea’s capital city sits just 30 miles from the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) . The city, which has a metropolitan area of around 25 million, is within easy reach of North Korea’s artillery guns. If North Korea decided to use these weapons, they could cause huge damage in a short amount of time.
One study from 2012 estimated that 64,000 people could be killed by this artillery in the first day. Even if South Korea and its American allies could destroy these weapons quickly, it would likely not be quick enough to stop massive bloodshed — including considerable losses among U. S. troops stationed in South Korea.
Worse still, North Korea now has nuclear weapons that it can likely mount on missiles that could likely reach South Korea, raising the possibility of a conflict of incredible destruction. Many of these nuclear weapons are hidden away, meaning a preemptive strike would be unlikely to disable them.
2. Sanctions don’t appear to be changing North Korea’s behavior
The other big option for dealing with North Korea is to apply economic pressure, rather than military pressure, in the hope of convincing North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program.
