This plan had already been mentioned by the South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol during his inaugural speech. But Pyongyang has long refused similar proposals.
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Will this plan be more successful than its predecessors? South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has announced that he will offer North Korea a major economic aid package in exchange for the denuclearization of its arsenal, “essential” to achieve lasting peace on the peninsula, Monday 15 August.
Yoon Suk-yeol announced that the plan would include food, energy, as well as aid to modernize infrastructures such as ports, airports and hospitals. This plan “will greatly improve North Korea’s economy and the standard of living of its people in stages, if the North ceases to develop its nuclear program and embarks on a genuine and substantial process of denuclearization”assured the South Korean leader, during a speech marking the anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule, in 1945.
This announcement comes in a tense context: North Korea has carried out a record number of weapons tests this year, and fired a full-range intercontinental ballistic missile, a first since 2017. Pyongyang also threatened to“eradicate” South Korean officials on Wednesday, August 10, in a speech to celebrate the “brilliant victory” of the country against Covid-19.
For specialists in the region, the chances of seeing North Korea accept this offer, already mentioned during Yoon Suk-yeol’s inaugural speech, are very slim. North Korea, which invests a large part of its GDP in its armament program, has long repeated that it is not interested in such an agreement.