Lower possibility of NK’s provocations after leader’s death: Pritchard

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- North Korea is unlikely to step up provocations as it undergoes a power transition following its leader's death, at least in the coming months, because they would be very costly in terms of relations with China and South Korea, a prominent Korea expert said Tuesday.

"I think there is a much lower probability (of North Korea's provocations). Probably not zero, but it's extremely low certainly in the next several months, if not a year. So I am not concerned about that," Jack Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) said in discussions on the post-Kim Jong-il era in the communist nation. The other panelists were Victor Cha, senior analyst at Center for Strategic and International Studies and Scott Snyder, researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Pritchard pointed out that, "A provocation at this point would damage the potential for China to be a larger-scale backer at a critical point in time."

He added North Korea has paid a steep price of deeper diplomatic isolation for a series of deadly attacks on South Korea in 2010, which were apparently aimed at solidifying the stature of Kim Jong-un, the third and youngest son of the late leader. Jong-un, known to be in his late 20s, has been named as "Great Successor" shortly after his father's sudden death on Saturday.

Pritchard served as Washington's special envoy for negotiations with North Korea from 2001 till 2003.

He and the other experts agreed that the North's untested new leader faces tougher challenges than his father did when he took over power in 1994.

"We have to remember that Kim Jong-il left, in terms of his legacy in North Korea, in addition to nuclear weapons, markets," Cha said. "There is a market mentality in North Korea and there is an independence of mind in the North Korean society that arguably did not exist when Kim Il-sung died in 1994."

Cha cautioned South Korea, the United States and China against miscalculating what's actually going on in the secretive North.

"The biggest enemy among the countries is miscalculation in response to smoke they are seeing in North Korea," said Cha, who worked as senior director for Asian affairs at the White House under the Bush administration.

He stressed that it is premature to say whether the smoke is coming "before or after fire."

On China's role in the ongoing transition in North Korea, meanwhile, Snyder pointed out that Beijing is "quite risk-averse."

"The real question is, 'Does China have the means or desire to be a kingmaker in North Korea?'" he said, adding Chinese officials are expected to affect whether the North's new leadership will succeed, rather than becoming a kingmaker.