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| Lawmakers hold a forum on how to seek a negotiated solution to the North Korean nuckear crisis at the National Assembly, Friday. /Yonhap |
By Rachel Lee
Some North Korea experts predicted Sunday that Washington and Pyongyang may take a drastic shift to dialogue following the ongoing nasty war of words.
They see North Korea's plan to fire four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) into the sea near the U.S. territory of Guam as unrealistic and a calculated scenario. They also speculate that Pyongyang would not take any military action before having talks with Washington.
There is also only a slim chance the U.S. would launch a pre-emptive strike or military reactions to the North's further provocations in the future as a military conflict between the two could escalate into a full-scale war, which is too costly for both nations.
Korea National Strategy Institute Director Kim Chang-soo said North Korea has used each provocation as a bargaining chip and its provocation is on course to reach a peak since it has disclosed details of its ICBM.
In the U.S., voices are rising that U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-line policy toward North Korea would be no solution to handling the matter, observers said.
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters Thursday (local time) that the Pentagon has a military solution in place, but prefers its ongoing diplomatic approach to the North Korean threat.
"We want to use diplomacy. That's where we've been, that's where we are right now, and that's where we hope to remain. But at the same time, our defenses are robust," Mattis said.
He called a war with North Korea "catastrophic."
North Korea and the U.S. are playing chicken right now, but they both will confront the "moment of truth" just before a conflict begins, Kyungnam University Professor Kim Keun-sik said.
The possibility of North Korea avoiding such a conflict is about 80 percent, Yun Duk-min, a professor Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said. He added Pyongyang could send a signal to Washingtonth it would give up the ICBM and start negotiations for a peace agreement as it did back in 1994 when the two nations agreed to freeze North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Experts stressed the importance of the South Korean government's active role in the current situation.
They have called for a need to send a message of "no war" to the North over and over and make sure to have a voice as a mediator in possible negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea.
Seoul should try its best to overcome the current crisis with possible measures whatever they may be, Kim Yeon-chul of Inje University said.
Former Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said during a lecture at the National Assembly Friday that the government should have sent a special envoy to the North to deliver the government's road map for its Korean Peninsula policy when it sent one to four nations ― the U.S., Russia, Japan and China ― in May.
Jeong stressed the government should set up communication channels with North Korea despite the current crisis.
