‘Extraordinary global pressure needed for North Korea’

Seoul, Oct 17 (IANS) The international community needs to exert "extraordinary" pressure to convince North Korea that dialogue offers a better option for its survival, a former US diplomat said on Tuesday.

Evans Revere, a former US deputy Assistant Secretary of State and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, also called for Seoul to play an active role in global efforts to tackle the North's growing nuclear and missile threats, Yonhap news agency reported.

"If conflict is to be avoided on the Korean Peninsula, and if Pyongyang's nuclear and military threats are to be eliminated, it will require extraordinary international pressure to convince the regime that its current path is unsustainable.

"... And that diplomacy and dialogue offer a better alternative if it hopes to preserve its regime and become a normal member of the international community," Revere said at a forum here hosted by South Korea's Unification Ministry.

South Korea is "uniquely positioned" to appeal to the international community in drumming up support for applying sanctions on Pyongyang, Revere said.

"The coming weeks and months will offer Seoul an important opportunity to demonstrate leadership, rally the international community and help coordinate the comprehensive and essential sanctions and other measures that may offer the last, best hope to convince Pyongyang to choose a better path."

Tensions are running high after the North's recent provocations including its sixth nuclear test conducted last month and an escalating war of words between US President Donald Trump and the North's leadership.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to take the "highest-level" actions against the US while Trump threatened to "totally destroy" the North if necessary. The North's top diplomat warned his country could test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific.

Revere expressed concerns about exchanges of inflammatory rhetoric saying they only served to "exacerbate tensions" and could "undermine" the message that diplomatic solutions remain open.

The former US diplomat said that North Korea would change its course only when the international community makes Pyongyang understand that "nuclear weapons will not help the regime's continuity, but undermine its very existence".

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