The North Korean issue has long been one of Asia's thorniest problems. The news in early 2012 that the country had agreed to suspend its nuclear development programme was welcomed by the international community and interpreted as a sign of things to come from the country’s new leader Kim Jong-un.
The agreement came at the price of food aid from the US, and three weeks later, in March 2012, North Korea declared that it would be launching a satellite even though it agreed to stop testing long-range missiles. The declaration was a reminder of the brinkmanship and bellicose rhetoric of Kim Jong-il, which many international observers hoped had died along with the ‘dear leader’ in December 2012.
There was hope that the six-party talks on disarming North Korea’s nuclear programme entirely would resume. The negotiations – involving North Korea, South Korea, the US, China, Japan and Russia – began in 2003 and were suspended in 2009 after North Korea pulled out of the talks.
International interest in North Korea does not yet extend to foreign investment or banking opportunities, but the country is significant because it is a geopolitical hotspot with the potential to destabilise the region. North Korea is a source of risk for South Korea, both in terms of the latter’s proximity to nuclear weapons and the potential of it having to foot the bill should the North Korean regime and economy collapse.
While the latest spat could be taken as more of the same from North Korea, there is still hope that things could change. The world looks quite different from when the six-party talks began in 2003, and in 2012 more changes will come in the form of presidential elections in both South Korea and the US, which will likely impact their policy toward North Korea. And North Korea’s leader, who has only been in the role a few months, still has the opportunity to prove his mettle when it comes to international diplomacy.
