Evans Revere [Brookings Institution]

“People who are going to occupy the key positions in the Biden Administration dealing Asia and North Korea have one thing in common: They have all been present, and witnessed, and been part of the failure of U.S. Policy. We know what doesn’t work,” said Evans Revere, former deputy Secretary Assistant of the State Department, in an interview with Herald Business.

Revere, who helped former US Secretary of Defense William J. Perry defuse the 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis, says the Biden Administration will have to make one important decision on its North Korea policy: whether the US goal really is to denuclearize North Korea.

“If it is, we have to find something that might work, which I think is an international effort to make clear to North Korea leader and the regime that their fundamental belief that nuclear weapons are their salvation is wrong. If we are serious about denuclearization, we need to convince Kim Jong-Un that his assumption is wrong.”

Revere served as a principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He now is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Revere said this might be the time for the US government to consider so-called “Massive Pressure.”

“Massive pressure in the diplomatic area, trade area, humanitarian activities, etc., a whole range of things that shakes the foundation of the North Korea regime, that is what we have never done before,” he said.

Biden Administration currently plans to review its North Korea policy. President Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said last Tuesday the incoming administration planned a full review of the US approach to North Korea to look at ways to increase pressure on the country to come to the negotiating table over its nuclear weapons. Blinken stated that North Korea’s nuclear problem “has not gotten better – in fact, it’s gotten worse.”

Revere is one of the few senior US officials who have negotiated directly with North Koreans. He also served as the US government’s primary day-to-day liaison with the North Korean government. Looking back, Revere said it is hard to say North Korea is committed to denuclearization.

“Dialogues North Korea wants to have with the US are how can the United States accept North Korea as a nuclear power, and what the US is prepared to do in terms of easing, removing sanctions, and eliminating the threat to North Korea,” he said.

“What we learned is that North Korea will never allow you to verify to confirm that they are doing what they said they would do. That’s why Six-party talks and other many agreements collapsed.”

The Biden Administration has been clear that it wants the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner before it gives any incentives -- such as sanctions relief -- to the North.

North Korea, on the other hand, said it would denuclearize when its security is guaranteed and hostile policy toward the country is removed.

Revere said a second version type of the ‘Perry Process’ might work as a first step toward North Korea’s denuclearization. High-level talks completely empowered by both leaderships, to discuss denuclearization of North Korea and normalization of US-DPRK relations.

However, the freeze of Yongbyon nuclear facility in exchange for a certain waiver or exemption of sanctions – which North Korea demanded in Hanoi – cannot be an acceptable offer. “(North Korea’s demand in Hanoi) clearly shows that North Korea will continue to have the capacity to build nuclear weapons and test ballistic missiles,” he said.

“If you freeze Yongbyon and if that leads to clear steps to denuclearize North Korea, that’s a good step. But if that is the beginning and the end of the step, what you’ve actually done is effectively accepted continuing existence of North Korea as a nuclear power because they have other facilities that will help them continue to become a more sophisticated nuclear country.”

The current Moon Jae-in Administration hopes to discuss the suspension or scale-down of US-ROK joint military exercise with North Korea through the inter-Korean military joint committee. So-called North Korea experts in Seoul have perceived the continued suspension of US-ROK large scale joint military exercises will lead to positive developments.

Revere was skeptical of this point-of-view. “It has been 2 plus years since there has been a unilateral suspension of these military exercises by the American President, who not only did not consult this with the South Korea government but also not with his own Pentagon. So here we are, in response to the suspension of large-scale military exercises, has North Korea suspended its single large-scale military exercises?” He asked.

“They expanded their own nuclear weapons program and continued to test short and medium-range ballistic missiles.”

By Jaeyeon Moon(munjae@heraldcorp.com)