 North Korean new leader Kim Jong-un speaks in front of uniforms of male and female students on display at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in Pyongyang, North Korea, on the occasion of Lunar New Year in this undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency, Wednesday. / AP-Yonhap |
By Kim Young-jin
U.S. President Barack Obama’s silence on North Korea during his State of the Union address earlier this week underscored his administration’s wait-and-see approach as the communist state consolidates power for its new leader, analysts said.
The omission stood in contrast to last year, when Obama insisted the North abandon its nuclear weapons program. But the landscape has changed after the death of late ruler Kim Jong-il and as Pyongyang installs his youngest son, Kim Jong-un as leader.
Instead, Obama saved his strongest foreign policy words for Iran, saying he would “take no options off the table” to prevent Tehran from crossing the nuclear weapons threshold, while adhering mainly to domestic talking points as he readies for presidential elections later this year.
“The U.S. is waiting to see stability in North Korea,” Yoo Ho-yeol, an international relations expert at Korea University, said. “The transition to Kim Jong-un makes significant progress on the nuclear issue difficult at the moment.”
The cautious approach comes after Washington pushed for a diplomatic breakthrough on the nuclear issue prior to Kim’s death last month.
Reports widely said that Washington last month offered massive food aid in exchange for Pyongyang halting its uranium enrichment program (UEP). While the deal has been thrown unto uncertainty as the world waits to see what policies the new regime will take, neither side has closed the door on further talks.
Bahng Tae-seop of the Samsung Economic Research Institute said there was no strategic benefit for adding Pyongyang to the speech.
“If he did mention it, he could have been attacked by his opponents for failing to make progress on the matter. So it was a bit of benign neglect,” he said.
The analyst added the showdown over Tehran’s nuclear program has taken precedence given its time constraints. Obama, as part of his push to sanction Iran, will have to decide in June whether to take action against other countries if they continue to buy Iranian oil through its central bank.
Still, Washington is likely to keep a keen watch over the North as some analysts have raised the possibility that Kim Jong-un could attempt a fresh provocation, such as a third nuclear test, in order to burnish his military credentials.
Perhaps with such a prospect in mind, the administration has engaged in brisk diplomacy with regional players over how to approach the North, and expressed its willingness to start a new chapter to deal with the nuclear and other issues if Pyongyang is prepared to take denuclearization steps.
Others played down Obama’s skipping of the North Korea issue, noting that he also said nothing of China’s growing military assertiveness or ongoing challenges in Afghanistan.
James M. Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the speech should be seen as Obama taking a strong stand against Republican challengers for the White House.
"This State of the Union address was never intended to be a policy speech," Lindsay wrote on a blog. "It was instead the opening salvo in his 2012 presidential campaign.”
