Biegun Wraps Up Trip to South Korea With His Call for North Korea Dialogue Unanswered
Yonhap News Agency
U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun on Tuesday wrapped up his three-day visit to Seoul and departed for Japan, with his emphatic call for dialogue with North Korea unanswered. His high-profile trip focused on efforts to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, as it has been pressuring Washington to make concessions by the end of the year, with hints that it could engage in provocative acts such as a long-range rocket launch. His South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon rode in the same car with Biegun to the airport in a show of close coordination between the allies on efforts to resume the hitherto unproductive negotiations with the North. On Monday, Biegun said that the United States has no deadline while stressing the "goal" of fulfilling the commitments that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made during their first historic summit in Singapore in June last year. In Japan, Biegun plans to meet the chief Japanese nuclear envoy, Shigeki Takizaki. The U.S. and the North last held working-level nuclear talks in Sweden in October. The talks ended fruitlessly, with Pyongyang accusing Washington of having come to the negotiating table “empty-handed.”
North Korea Says New Tests Will Help It Counter US Threats
Kim Tong-Hyung | AP
North Korea said it successfully performed another “crucial test” at its long-range rocket launch site that will further strengthen its nuclear deterrent. The test — the second at the facility in a week, according to North Korea’s Academy of Defense Science — possibly involved technologies to improve intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the continental United States. The Academy of Defense Science did not specify what was tested on Friday. Just days earlier, the North said it conducted a “very important test” at the site on the country’s northwestern coast, prompting speculation that it involved a new engine for either an ICBM or a space launch vehicle. The testing activity and defiant statements suggest that the North is preparing to do something to provoke the United States if Washington doesn’t back down and make concessions to ease sanctions and pressure on Pyongyang in deadlocked nuclear negotiations. Pak Jong Chon, chief of the Korean People’s Army’s general staff, asserted on Saturday that North Korea has built up “tremendous power” and that the findings from the recent tests would be used to develop new weapons to allow the country to “definitely and reliably” counter U.S. nuclear threats.
Iran’s Rouhani To Visit Japan Amid Heightened Tensions With US
Daniel Leussink | Reuters
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will visit Japan on Dec. 20-21 and meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as the Asian country, a U.S. ally, looks to resolve Tehran’s nuclear impasse with Washington. Japan maintains friendly ties with both the United States and Iran and has previously tried to ease tensions between the two countries, which severed diplomatic relations after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah. Tensions have heightened between Tehran and Washington since last year when President Donald Trump pulled out the United States from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six powers and re-imposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Rouhani plans to tell Abe that the Iranian government would not oppose a deployment of Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces to the Middle East, Kyodo news agency reported, citing a source. Iran has rejected the presence of foreign forces in the region, saying it would create insecurity for oil and shipping. Kyodo said the Japanese deployment will be sent to the Gulf of Oman, the northern part of the Arabian Sea, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, citing a draft plan.
US Senators Request Intelligence Review On Not Extending Nuclear Arms Treaty With Russia
RFE/RL
Three U.S. senators have asked Joseph Maguire, the acting director of National Intelligence, to conduct an impact assessment of how Russia and China would react if Washington withdraws from the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with Russia. Bob Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was joined by Senators Todd Young (Republican-Indiana) and Chris Van Hollen (Democrat-Maryland) on December 16 in asking what would occur if the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) were to expire in February 2021. “If New START is allowed to dissolve and no replacement agreement arises, the United States will find itself in an environment in which Russia’s nuclear arsenal is entirely unconstrained,” the senators wrote. “We believe the negative consequences for the United States of abandoning New START, when Russia is in compliance with the treaty and is seeking to extend it, would be grave in the short-term and long-term.”
Nuclear Enrichment: Russia’s Ill-Fated Influence Campaign in South Africa
Andrew Weiss and Eugene Rumer | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Amid the widespread attention the Kremlin’s recent inroads in Africa have attracted, there has been surprisingly little discussion of South Africa, a country which, for nearly a decade, unquestionably represented Russia’s biggest foreign policy success story on the continent. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials pursued a series of initiatives, such as the inclusion of South Africa in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) grouping and the launch of ambitious forms of cooperation between state-backed energy interests primarily in the nuclear sector. The controversy arising from a massive $76 billion nuclear power plant construction deal triggered strong pushback and legal challenges from South Africa’s institutional checks and balances, civil society groups, and independent media. Key parts of the Russian national security establishment view civil nuclear power exports as an important tool for projecting influence overseas while creating revenue streams for sustaining intellectual and technical capabilities and vital programs inside Russia itself. Yet such cooperation is often a two-edged sword.
While Positive Toward US Alliance, South Koreans Want to Counter Trump’s Demands on Host-Nation Support
Karl Friedhoff | Chicago Council on Global Affairs
From December 9 to 11, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted a poll in South Korea on South Korean attitudes toward the United States, the alliance between the two countries, and the ongoing negotiations about host-nation financial support. A large majority (92%) of the South Korean public supports their country’s alliance with the United States. This is largely unchanged since 2014 when polling by the Asan Institute in South Korea found support for the alliance at 96 percent. Despite general affirmation of the alliance, South Koreans do not necessarily see the United States and their own country working in the same direction on key security issues. Fifty-five percent say the two countries are working in different directions on regional security (37% say they are working in the same direction). Fifty-two percent say the United States and South Korea are working in different directions on denuclearizing North Korea (42% same direction). Some may sense a disconnect with the United States on US demands to increase host-nation financial support. A clear majority (68%) say that South Korea should negotiate a lower cost than the $4.7 billion request made by the United States. One-quarter (26%) say South Korea should refuse to pay.