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At a panel held Friday during a symposium titled "International Cooperation for the Peaceful Solution of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis" held in Washington D.C. and organized by the Chosun Ilbo, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), participants joined together in calling for North Korea to change its attitude.
Gordon Flake of the Mansfield Center strongly criticized North Korea for its nuclear program, noting that the work of paving a road to a solution, an effort that has gone on for ten years, was ruined because of the North's nuclear program. The road to a solution has disappeared, he said.
He said also that China and South Korea have still not figured out that the United States changed in the wake of the terrorism of September 11, 2001. The existing road, he said, has been cut off and a detour has taken its place, but China and Korea are telling America that the old road has been repaired, and that it should travel down it.
Joel Wit of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted that Britain had played an important role in getting Libya to give up its weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and said Japan should play a similar role in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.
Ahn Choong-yong, president of KIEP, said that the "external conditions" exist for resolving the issue peacefully. "North Korea has begun economic reform, local areas are becoming revitalized, and as South Korea, China, and Japan choose mutual win-win strategies, they are encouraging changes in the North's system of government."
"It is still questionable whether North Korea is fundamentally changing," said Hong Soon-young, former Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. "The North's leadership is in a situation where it has to decide on bold change, and you wonder when that will happen."
A considerable number of participants stayed around until the final panel, and people showed great interest in the discussion. Figures not scheduled to participate, including Harvard University Professor Ashton Carter, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Clinton Administration.
Chosun Ilbo Reporting Team
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