Recent Developments Relating to North Korea

The article seeks to help find common ground, in the Trilateral context, on the approach to current developments relating to North Korea as well as on long-term policy regarding the Koreas. We are aware of the close and long-established interaction between the Koreas, China and Russia, and the particular interests of the latter two in the Korean peninsula. For India, this is by no means a remote area but indeed an integral part of our growing engagement with East and Northeast Asia. The well documented record of trafficking in nuclear weapons and missile technology between North Korea and our immediate South Asian neighbourhood is a matter of utmost concern. The justified anxiety about the proliferation related implications of North Korea's nuclear weapon and missile activity should reinforce purposeful rethinking on the correct ways and means of ensuring non-proliferation and eventual global nuclear disarmament. Also relevant is the larger picture involving North Korea's internal dynamic and development, its reform programme, incipient globalisation, trends in North Korea's relations with Japan and South Korea, especially inter-Korea exchanges and the long term agenda of reunification, and the prospects for the six-party talks and the role of the US.