Major disaster could open door to N. Korea talks, Japanese disaster expert says
North Koreans are seen at a flooded village in Anju, South Pyongan Province, July 30, 2012, in this picture released by North Korea's official news agency KCNA. Reuters-Yonhap
Yuichi Ono, professor at Tohoku University and deputy director of International Research Institute of Disaster Science / Courtesy of Tohoku University
A major natural disaster in North Korea could create an opening for engagement with the isolated regime through humanitarian aid, according to a Japanese disaster expert who once coordinated with North Korean officials at the United Nations. He noted that the U.N. had discussed such an approach and that disasters have helped thaw relations elsewhere.
“In the event of a major disaster in North Korea, neighboring countries — including China, South Korea, Russia and Japan — could potentially provide humanitarian assistance,” Yuichi Ono, professor at Tohoku University and deputy director of International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), said during a meeting with South Korean reporters visiting Japan as part of a South Korea-Japan journalists’ exchange program on Oct. 23, according to the joint press corps.
He said the idea has been raised within the U.N. itself.
“We actually discussed within the U.N. whether a major disaster might serve as a catalyst for the country to open its doors,” he said. “Statistically speaking, it’s only a matter of time before North Korea is hit by a massive typhoon. I thought that some groundwork needed to be laid in advance.”
He pointed to past cases in which disasters became turning points for restoring relations, including Myanmar and Indonesia’s Aceh province following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
“Myanmar is one such case, as is Aceh in Indonesia. More than 100,000 people lost their lives in Aceh during the tsunami off Sumatra. Aceh was fighting an independence movement at the time, keeping the region isolated, and foreigners were barred from entering. Yet even there, the disaster served as a turning point to rebuild ties and restore relations,” he said.
The remarks came after North Korea closed its doors to South Korea, declaring the two Koreas “the most hostile states” in late 2023 and abandoning the “provisional special relationship” framework that had governed inter-Korean ties since 1991. Over the last few years, the South Korean government has struggled to maintain engagement with North Korea, while Pyongyang has accelerated cooperation with China and Russia, and built so-called border fortifications on their side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.
Ono’s perspective is rooted in his experience. He served as a U.N. official in the Disaster Risk Reduction Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) between 2009 and 2012, where he was one of the few Japanese officials who frequently coordinated with North Korea for meetings of the ESCAP/World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Typhoon Committee. Established in 1968, the intergovernmental body works to strengthen regional efforts for reducing loss of life and damage from typhoons. North Korea, South Korea and Japan are among its 14 members.
According to Ono, North Korea’s participation in the committee followed a pattern.
“When international meetings were held in Japan or South Korea, North Korea did not send delegates. But when those conferences were hosted in China or Vietnam, North Korean representatives showed up,” he said.
North Korean officials mostly listened without speaking during the sessions, he added, though the country’s hydrology experts did deliver a presentation on disaster management to fellow members.
Pyongyang stopped communicating with the committee after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un came to power, though Ono did not rule out the possibility that the door could reopen.