The purpose of N.Korea’s peace offensive

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed on the second day of the party’s seventh Congress on Saturday that the country’s status as a nuclear weapon state was the Workers’ Party’s achievement in 36 years. Kim reiterated that North Korea would not abandon nuclear weapons without global denuclearization, saying, "Our Republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes. And we will faithfully fulfill our obligation for non-proliferation and strive for global denuclearization".

Kim made it clear that its nuclear-economic strategy will be permanent so that the nation can achieve the development of both the economy and nuclear power in response to the current situation and the internal demand for revolutionary development. He indirectly said that North Korea would not yield to the sanctions imposed by the U.N. and the Park Geun-hye administration.

He also argued that the U.S. should replace the ceasefire treaty between the two Koreas with a peace treaty and withdraw its invading troops and war weapons from South Korea. He repeatedly suggested a federal system for reunification and asked for negotiations with the South Korean military authorities and stopping the broadcasting of psychological warfare. Kim’s claims seem to be a strategy to make the world accept its nuclear weapons and encourage internal conflicts in the South and the division of the U.S.-Korean alliance through a peace offensive. North Korea appears to change the situation as China strongly asks for denuclearization and negotiations for a peace treaty and the U.S. shows signs of agreement on this recently. In fact, U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who recently visited Seoul, reportedly asked Seoul about how much it could yield should Washington discusses a peace treaty with Pyongyang.

We can never accept the replacement of the armistice treaty with a peace treaty on condition of the withdrawal of the U.S. troops. Both Seoul and Washington should closely cooperate so that they are not deceived by the North, which aims to have direct negotiations with Washington by leveraging the South. If the North wants to talk about peace, it should give up on the impending fifth nuclear test first.

Except wearing a suit like his grandfather, Kim Jong Un has changed nothing. Though a five-year national economic plan was proposed in the economic sector, no reform and openness policy, which we anticipated so much, was released. Kim said that the world should not seek the collapse of his regime. However, the North will eventually end up collapsing by itself if it insists on nuclear weapons. In spite of any friendly gesture by the North, whether it is a peace treaty or an inter-Korean dialogue, it will be only a waste of time unless it abandons nuclear weapons. This is a lesson that we have learned so far.