If Obama calls Kim Jong-un

By Tong Kim

President Obama's call to Iranian President Rouhani on Friday marked the first direct talks between the leaders of the United States and Iran in three decades. This reminds me of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's wish of March, as relayed by former basketball star Dennis Rodman who met with him, that he would like Obama to call him to lay the ground for a diplomatic resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue.

Obama's call to Rouhani took place after exchanges of positive statements about each other, a bilateral foreign ministerial meeting, and a U.S. attempt to have a brief encounter with the Iranian leader during the U.N. General Assembly last week in New York. After the 15-minute call that was initiated by Rouhani, Obama said a "comprehensive solution" could be reached on Iran's nuclear program, although there would be "important obstacles to moving forward and success is by no means guaranteed."

Proponents of improved U.S.-Iran relations quickly hailed the call as a historic breakthrough to the Iranian nuclear issue. Opponents, including Republicans in Congress and American allies in Israel, expressed their skepticism about the prospect of a diplomatic resolution that scraps Iran's nuclear weapons ambition in return for lifting economic sanctions against Iran.

Iran denies the Western charges that its uranium enrichment program was geared toward manufacturing nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its program is for internationally recognized peaceful use of nuclear energy. Obama said the United States "respects the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful energy." Obama and Rouhani have instructed their people to work toward a transparent and verifiable agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.

Also, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is said to have spoken against the development of a nuclear weapon and gave full authority to Rouhani to negotiate the nuclear issue with the United States and other major powers. Obama's recent diplomacy toward Iran and Syria transcending domestic and allied constraints casts an interesting contrast to his stonewalling position to North Korea's pursuit of dialogue with the United States.

A big difference between Iran and North Korea is: the former is strongly suspected of moving to develop a nuclear weapon, whereas the latter has declared it has developed a nuclear weapon. The United States, South Korea, China and the rest of the international community do not recognize its nuclear status. Another important difference is that Iran has never reached an international agreement on its nuclear program, while North Korea had a number of agreements, but failed to keep them.

Given the two unfortunate decades of nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang, Obama may have good reason not to initiate a call to Kim Jong-un, even though he may share the view that a presidential initiative, as a top-to-bottom approach, could be instrumental in resolving some issues that would not be resolved by low tier diplomat under the level of assistant secretaries.

Right now, Washington and Seoul would not engage Pyongyang unless it takes "pre-steps" in action not in word, to prove its seriousness to denuclearization. The pre-steps presumably would include suspension of the ongoing nuclear activities at Yongbyon and re-invitation of IAEA inspectors to the North. Pyongyang calls for unconditional talks including six-party talks, but it is unlikely to take the "pre-steps" demanded of it under current circumstances.

In the meantime, North Korea keeps improving its nuclear technology, spinning an increasing number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment, while it may have resumed the operation of its plutonium production facilities to increase its nuclear arsenal. It may be planning a fourth nuclear test to perfect the methods of nuclear miniaturization to load a nuclear device to a missile.

At a conference sponsored by the Asan Policy Institute in Seoul last week, nuclear scientists argued that North Korea might need just one more test to succeed in miniaturization. Some of them suggested that North Korea is capable of making indigenous critical components of centrifuges, which would indicate that the increased implementation of U.N. sanctions even with China's active participation does not affect the advancement of Pyongyang's uranium program.

Watching North Korea correctly, for its political, economic, military, or nuclear area, is very difficult due to a lack of reliable information and data and sometimes because of a bias against or in favor of it. Only when we maintain our rational objectivity, can we come up with a best educated guess for a given area. In the nuclear area, there seems to be a consensus among objective scientists that North Korea's nuclear capability will keep growing, unless it is addressed more effectively. Otherwise, the nuclear program would continue to a point where the North Koreans determine they have developed it enough.

Pyongyang's last-minute cancellation of a planned reunion of separated families ― another obstacle to nuclear talks if an improved inter-Korean relationship is still a condition to such talks ― puzzled many North Korea watchers who had thought the North would go through with it because the North badly wanted to resume tourism to Mt. Geumgang as an additional source of hard currency from the South.

One can speculate several reasons for the cancellation. Probably, the main reason should have been Seoul's unintended hurt of Pyongyang's pride by claiming that its "trust-building process" and "principled hardliner approach" successfully pressured the North to come along with the South in making progress in inter-Korean relations.

There seems a slim chance for any progress in North Korean denuclearization. Should Obama consider calling Kim Jong-un? Things have changed since Obama had said in 2008 that if elected, he would meet with leaders of Iran and North Korea. What's your take?

The writer is a research professor at the Illmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and a visiting professor at the University of North Korean Studies. He is also an ICAS fellow. Reach him at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.