North Korea sanctions: Us reconsiders travel ban

North Korea sanctions: Us reconsiders travel ban

By Choe Sang-hun

Updated20 December 2018
----
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/asia/us-to-reconsider-travel-ban-to-north-korea-20181220-p50nfa.html?ref=rss

Seoul: North Korea says it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States removes its nuclear threat first.

The statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday, comes a day after Washington's top envoy to North Korea said the US planned to review its ban on American travel there to help facilitate humanitarian aid shipments.

It raises further doubts on whether leader Kim Jong-un will ever relinquish an arsenal he may see as his greatest guarantee of survival.

The remarks from Stephen Biegun, the US State Department's special representative, indicated that Washington was easing some of its "maximum" pressure on North Korea to break a prolonged stalemate in denuclearisation talks.


US Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, in Seoul on Wednesday.CREDIT:AP
----
North Korea has insisted negotiations would make no headway unless Washington first eases sanctions. It remained unclear whether the lifting of the travel ban and humanitarian aid deliveries will be enough for the North to make a major concession toward denuclearisation.

"I'll be sitting down with American aid groups early in the new year to discuss how we can better ensure the delivery of appropriate assistance," Biegun told reporters at Incheon International Airport outside Seoul, according to Reuters. Biegun made the remarks after he arrived for four days of meetings with South Korean officials.

International aid groups have complained that Washington's strict enforcement of sanctions, including the travel ban imposed on American citizens last year, has hampered their operations in the country. North Korea is one of the world's poorest nations, and many of its citizens suffer from chronic malnutrition and shortages of medical care.

The sanctions have been enforced so vigorously that aid groups have said that it has become nearly impossible to transfer cash for their daily operations there, or even take any metal objects, like shovels and water pumps.

Biegun's comment came three days after North Korea warned that if the US continued to escalate its sanctions and highlighted human rights issues in the country, it could "forever" shatter any chance of denuclearisation.

In Seoul, Biegun planned to meet with South Korean officials to coordinate policies, including the enforcement of sanctions.

South Korea has been eager to improve its ties with the North, and initiated an 18-day field study in recent weeks on the condition of its neighbour's rail systems. The two Koreas plan to hold a ground-breaking ceremony next Wednesday for a joint project to modernise and reconnect cross-border roads and railway tracks. The ceremony is to take place at Panmun Station just north of the western border between the two countries.

The rail project is one of several collaborative projects championed to develop closer ties with the North and demonstrate the economic benefits the country could gain from giving up its nuclear weapons.

Whether any significant engineering work can take place will depend on progress in ridding the North of its nuclear arms. International sanctions imposed on the North over its weapons program forbid the kind of significant investment from the South that such infrastructure work would entail.

Washington has insisted that South Korea refrain from joint economic projects with the North until the country moves toward denuclearisation. The meeting Biegun will attend is expected to focus on ensuring that the inter-Korean project proceeds in a way that does not violate international sanctions.

The Trump administration enacted the travel ban on North Korea in September last year, after an American university student Otto Warmbier died as a result of brain damage suffered in prison. Warmbier was arrested in 2016 while on a tour of Pyongyang.

The ban affected a dozen US non-profit groups that work regularly in North Korea, although some aid workers have been able to get "special validation" to travel, in the form of one-time-only passports issued by the State Department.

Washington has held fast to its policy of exerting "maximum" economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, even though President Donald Trump has claimed progress in negotiations since meeting its leader, Kim Jong-un, in June in Singapore.

In the months following that meeting, Washington has continued to crack down on companies, individuals and ships accused of engaging in money laundering, cyber attacks and ship-to-ship transfers of fuel on North Korea's behalf.

Talks between the two sides have bogged down over who should take the first steps in carrying out the broadly worded Singapore agreement resulting from the summit.

----