Trump advised to send envoy to Pyongyang

This is the eighth and last in a series of interviews with international experts on North Korea to look at how its nuclear issues will unfold down the road and seek ways to secure stability on the Korean Peninsula. ― ED.

NK estimated to have ability to produce 7 nuclear bombs a By Kim Jae-kyoung

Siegfried S. Hecker

A world-renowned nuclear scientist said that U.S. President Donald Trump must to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by sending an envoy to Pyongyang to avoid a nuclear catastrophe.

“I believe the first talks should be bilateral and informal by a presidential envoy talking directly to Kim Jong-un,” said Siegfried S. Hecker, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, in an interview.

“I believe both Seoul and Beijing would support such talks. These talks may then also help to build the foundation for renewed multilateral negotiations, which, first and foremost must involve South Korea, as well as China,” he added.

Hecker, the co-director of CISAC from 2007 to 2012, has visited North Korea several times to assess the plutonium program at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center since 2004.

He stressed that it is most important to convey the message that nuclear weapons cannot be used under any circumstances.

“There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. Any explosion of a nuclear device on the Korean Peninsula is a catastrophe of indescribable proportions,” he said.

The internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction and nuclear security said that the Trump administration and the new South Korean government face the challenge of avoiding a nuclear detonation on the Korean Peninsula.

He believes that such an incident could result from a miscalculation or overconfidence by the Kim Jong-un regime as well as an accident with the nuclear weapons in the North.

“A conventional confrontation may turn nuclear with an inexperienced leader in charge,” he said. “Or, in the case of instability in the North, who will control the nuclear weapons? These are serious concerns that must be addressed now,” he added.

Hecker, who served as the director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, from 1986 to 1997, estimated that North Korea, although he is uncertain, may have sufficient material for 20 to 25 nuclear weapons.

Source:koreatimes.co.kr