A Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged the Trump Administration to engage in “direct diplomacy” with North Korea, following its Monday test of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that President Trump should pair sanctions with dialogue, warning “there is no military solution to this threat.”
“Unilateral action will only escalate tension, increase the paranoia of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un, and bring us closer to what everyone agrees would be a catastrophic war,” Markey said.
The lawmaker called on Trump to bring up North Korea with Chinese President Xi Jinping, to discuss how the US and China “can cooperate to achieve their shared goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”
Markey had also called on Trump to pair outreach to Pyongyang with “increased economic sanctions pressure from China.”
Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet this week at the G-20 summit in Germany.
Trump, however, doesn’t appear too interested in coordinating with Beijing on security issues in the aftermath of North Korea’s ICBM test.
“Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!” Trump tweeted on Monday.
“Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter,” the President said, in a tweet sent Wednesday morning. He was referring to recent Chinese government reports on economic ties between Beijing and Pyongyang.
“So much for China working with us – but we had to give it a try!” Trump added.
In his statement on Tuesday, Markey criticized Trump’s “vague Twitter bluster.”
Direct dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington has been hemmed to narrow, specific issues since 2016, according to The Washington Post, when “North Korea dropped a proposal…to engage in formal peace talks with the Obama administration to officially end the Korean War.”
The Korean War never formally ended. A ceasefire stopping the fighting between North and South Korea in 1953.
The decision to end talks occurred because North Korea “refused to include its nuclear program on the agenda,” the Post stated.
Pyongyang claimed that the ICBM tested on Monday can carry a nuclear warhead. Observers say that the missile could hit parts of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, according to Reuters.
Nuclear non-proliferation and peace advocacy groups have called on the US to try engage in diplomacy with North Korea, in an effort to convince Pyongyang to stop testing missiles and to scale back its military’s nuclear activities.
“A concerted diplomatic effort…stands the best chance of halting North Korea’s program,” the Arms Control Association said in February.
The American Friends Services Committee said in a report issued last month that North Korea “has scaled back or refrained all together from conducting missile tests,” when the US has engaged the country’s government “in dialogue.”
In a joint statement issued last week with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump said that “the door to dialogue with [North Korea] remains open under the right circumstances.”
Russia and China issued a joint statement of their own, in response to Monday’s ICBM launch. The two countries said that North Korea should suspend its missile program, and that the US and South Korea should respond by suspending joint military exercises.
