Three days ago, the Supreme People’s Assembly in North Korea decided to cancel all economic cooperation agreements with South Korea. This is part of a fundamental change of course that the North Korean regime has made in recent weeks: in mid-January, dictator Kim Jong Un announced that North Korea would no longer strive for peaceful reunification with the South. And at the same time he declared South Korea’s government and society enemies. The former German ambassador to North Korea, Thomas Schäfer, assesses the change of course.
SRF News: What is behind this change of course by the North Korean regime?
Thomas Schäfer: It’s only a nominal change of course. North Korea’s goal has always been to control South Korea. The whole thing was called reunification. North Korea’s long-standing reunification plan was for the two social systems to initially continue to coexist. The inter-Korean border should be maintained, but there should be a common foreign and security policy. American troops should leave South Korea.
I don’t think there is an acute threat of war now.
Now Kim Jong Un has said: We are no longer striving for reunification, South Korea is the enemy, and if necessary we can also use nuclear weapons against South Korea. But ultimately that is not a significant difference. North Korea continues to be concerned with controlling South Korea and loosening and dissolving South Korea’s alliance with the USA.
Are these North Korean announcements a harbinger of a military attack against the South?
I don’t think there is an acute threat of war now. The North Koreans are not suicides. Of course, they know that if they attack South Korea now, South Korea and the USA would retaliate. However, if President Trump wins the US presidential election, North Korea hopes to get back into talks with the US in order to obtain concessions on the demand for a withdrawal of American troops.
Legend:
North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un no longer wants to have anything to do with peaceful reunification with South Korea and is betting on US presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Keystone/ /Korea News Service
Is it precisely such negotiations with the USA that North Korea is seeking?
It was clear that North Korea was not looking for concessions from the Biden administration. The Biden administration did exactly the right thing: They always offered talks, but at the same time they strengthened the alliance with South Korea and also included Japan in a trilateral alliance.
I believe that the international community’s policy was correct.
When Trump entered into talks with Kim Jong Un in 2019 and met with him in Hanoi, the North Koreans hoped that Trump would make concessions on the issue of the withdrawal of American troops. Now you hope that it could work in a new attempt.
The West has had tough sanctions against North Korea for years. What levers does the West still have?
I believe that the international community’s policy was right: security guarantees for North Korea, economic and political incentives, offers of talks – and sanctions. You should stay on this course. The elite that determines the country’s course is relatively small. Until a few years ago there were also voices among these people who advocated a more moderate course.
These people have fallen silent. But they still sit there and have a certain influence. So you have to appeal to them and hope that they will regain more power and then respond to the international community’s offers.
Matthias Küng conducted the interview.