North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's public moves to stop pursuing eventual unification with the South is rooted in a "desperate" effort to control the flow of information in country, according to a Biden administration diplomat.
The remark comes amid decades-high tensions on the Korean Peninsula, exacerbated by the North's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, its first successful spy satellite launch, and the South's military exercises with U.S. forces.
Earlier this year, the 40-year-old supreme leader said a rapprochement with the South was no longer practical, with the country's rubber-stamp parliament announcing it was amending the constitution to label Seoul as its "primary foe."
Kim also moved to abolish organizations that had been tasked with inter-Korean cooperation or pro-unification rhetoric. Other casualties of the campaign to scrub references to reunification, a goal of Kim's father and grandfather, include a 100-foot monument and commemorative stamps.
"Kim Jong-un's recent abandonment of reunification goals, the shift and rhetoric towards Seoul should be seen less as a strategic shift signaling his confidence in his ties with Russia and its weapons program and more as a desperate attempt to get control of the internal information environment," U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean human rights Julie Turner said Tuesday at a form hosted by the Korea Society non-profit organization.
Yet Turner added Washington is prepared to engage with North Korea on human rights in a "transparent and outcome-oriented discussion" that would include the U.S.'s own human rights record and efforts the country is taking to improve it.
A formal peace treaty between Seoul and Pyongyang has never been signed, despite the end of open hostilities in 1953.
The North Korean embassy in Beijing, China, did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Also on Tuesday, Mira Rapp-Hooper, the National Security Council overseeing East Asia and Oceania affairs, said that the U.S. was open to dialogue with North Korea "without precondition." She specified this applied to a wide range of topics not limited to denuclearization.
Citizens in the impoverished country have extremely limited access to information, with state-controlled media propagating government narratives.
Internet access is heavily restricted, and possession of foreign media, such as that depicting the higher standard of life in the neighboring South, is punishable by hard labor and even death.
In its annual report on global freedom last year, New York-based NGO Freedom House gave North Korea a score of 0 out of 40 in the political rights category and 3 out of 60 for civil liberties.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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