WASHINGTON, March 18 (Yonhap) -- The United States Thursday denied reports that it will soon have closed-door discussions with South Korea and China on plans for upheaval in North Korea.
"I have not been told we are going to have this type of meeting at this particular point," a senior State Department official said, asking not to be named. "If we are working on that in sort of an early stage, that could be possible."
Reports said that representatives of the U.S. Pacific Command and state-run defense think tanks of South Korea and China will get together in Beijing next month to discuss control of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction and refugees in case of a coup or the sudden death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell reportedly said in Seoul recently that he believes the ailing North Korean leader may have only three years to live, based on medical analyses.
Kim Jong-il is said to have suffered a stroke in 2008, and has recently appeared gaunt. Rumors persist that he is grooming his third and youngest son, Jong-un, 27, to assume leadership, just as he did in 1994 with the sudden death of his father, Kim Il-sung, the founding father of the communist North.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior U.S. officials have publicly discussed contingency plans for the North, but China, Pyongyang's biggest benefactor, has refused to talk openly with the U.S. on the subject in order not to rile its communist ally.
North Korea recently warned of a war against South Korea over reports that Seoul had come up with a new operational plan jointly with the U.S., called OPLAN 5029, in case of regime change or other contingencies in the North.
China maintains an alliance with North Korea that calls for automatic involvement in any military conflict.
At issue are loose nuclear materials that might be funneled to terrorist groups, and a potential flood of refugees to the northeastern part of China, which borders North Korea.
U.S. officials have said they would mobilize to send troops to North Korea in case of a crisis there. The U.S. currently maintains 28,500 troops in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
A Council on Foreign Relations report has said that an additional 460,000 troops -- three times the number of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq -- would be needed to help maintain stability in North Korea and assure the safe removal of North Korea's nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction in case of its collapse.
North Korea detonated its second nuclear device in May last year, after an earlier test in 2006, and is believed to possess ballistic missiles capable of reaching parts of the mainland U.S.
The CFR report also stressed the need for the U.S. to seek "a quiet dialogue" with China "to reduce the risk of misunderstanding and friction in a crisis involving North Korea."
China, meanwhile, will likely join forces with Russia to prevent U.S. forces from approaching their Far Eastern borders, Richard Weitz, senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, said recently.
"A joint occupation might also occur if neither Russia nor China felt comfortable allowing the other to dominate the peninsula through unilateral occupation," he said.
Beijing and Moscow have forged military ties in recent years through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes several Central Asian states, apparently to counter the U.S. military presence in the Pacific.
China and Russia have conducted joint military drills to cover Vladivostok, Shandong Peninsula and seas surrounding the Korean Peninsula since 2005.
China, which has long been a lifeline for the impoverished North with the provision of food, energy and other necessities, joined with Russia, another veto-wielding power on the U.N. Security Council, in watering down U.N. sanctions adopted after the North's nuclear and missile tests early last year.
Some analysts say China may be willing to acquiesce to North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons, although Beijing has been hosting the six-party talks, also involving South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Russia, for the North's denuclearization since 2003.
Beijing, with an eye on superpower status, is also said to prefer the status quo to any instability -- or Korean reunification led by South Korea and the U.S.
China has invested heavily in North Korea in recent decades despite the on-and-off North Korean nuclear crisis, and has recently been discussing investment contracts worth billions of dollars with the North, which would undercut the current sanctions.
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