Gallucci: 'Lots of questions' over North Korea's denuclearization

Robert Gallucci, former chief U.S. negotiator on the North Korean nuclear crisis, speaks during The Korea Forum 2018, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han

By Park Si-soo

Robert Gallucci, former chief U.S. negotiator on the North Korean nuclear crisis, on Thursday "welcomed" North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's commitment to denuclearization shown during his historic April 27 summit with President Moon Jae-in. But he remained cautious about Kim's definition of denuclearization, saying there are "still lots of questions" left unanswered.

"I welcome North Korea's change ... right now we are in the right first step," said Gallucci, who is chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

"I don't want to downplay the deal struck between the two Koreas. But I'm not sure about denuclearization... what does denuclearization mean, what should we expect... still there are lots of questions."

Moon-Kim summit is 'right first step' 2018-05-03 17:45  |  Politics Ex-US diplomat to Seoul cautious of North Korea's promises 2018-05-03 16:16  |  North Korea Foreign envoys moved by inter-Korean summit 2018-05-03 17:16  |  North Korea 'We must not miss this opportunity' 2018-05-03 12:25  |  North Korea He made the remarks during a panel discussion at The Korea Forum 2018, co-hosted by The Korea Times and its sister paper the Hankook Ilbo, at The Shilla Hotel Seoul in central Seoul. Other speakers in the session were Yonsei University political science and international studies professor Kim Ki-jung; Council of China Reform Forum (CRF) senior adviser Pan Zhen-qiang; former South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan; and Sejong Institute Chairman Baek Jong-chun.

Gallucci called for a "clear and specified" approach to the North's denuclearization.

"There are lots of explanations in the U.S. of what went wrong," he said when asked why past negotiations failed. "The task we face is very different (from the past). In the past there was no uranium enrichment technology in North Korea. But now it has it. There are a lot of factors putting negotiations in a very different situation (compared to the past). Lessons from the past are clarity, specificity and don't raise the flag until things are done."

Regarding the North's radical switch to rapprochement, Gallucci said U.S. President Donald Trump's "threatening rhetoric" and "collusion between Beijing and Washington" over sanctions on Pyongyang might have played a role. But he did not rule out the possibility that North Korea found itself in the best position to negotiate with the U.S. after completing the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

He noted it would not be easy work to achieve complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID), unless North Korea makes a candid declaration of its nuclear stockpile.

Gallucci said the core of the nuclear bomb that devastated Japan's Nagasaki in 1945 was small enough to be hidden in a small "speaker box," explaining the difficulty of reaching complete denuclearization.

He said if it was unrealistic for inspectors to find and check all the containers ― small and big, and declared and undeclared ― existing in North Korea, the pursuit of complete denuclearization would be also "nonsense."

So rather than pursuing CVID, he said, it would be more realistic to focus on reducing the North's nuclear capability and how to achieve this.

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