Ex-Trump official calls IAEA chief’s proposal on North Korean nuclear weapons a ‘difficult issue’

Robert O’Brien, former National Security Advisor, speaks during a forum hosted by the TriForum in Washington on September 30, 2024. (YONHAP)

A former US national security adviser on Monday described the recent call by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to recognize the North’s possession of nuclear weapons as an “unpredictable demand”, warning that Seoul and Tokyo would want to get their own nuclear weapons if Pyongyang were to gain recognition. .

Robert O’Brien, who served as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2021, made the comments, reaffirming that the US goal is “denuclearization.”

In an interview with The Associated Press published last week, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi called on the world to recognize the North’s nuclear arsenal and continue dialogue with the recalcitrant regime. He claimed that the North had already become a “de facto nuclear weapons possessing state” in 2006.

“Why wouldn’t Japan and South Korea and others want to have their own nuclear weapons at that point if you recognize North Korea as a nuclear country and treat it in terms of arms control as you would Russia and China? ?,” he said. “So it’s a tough question.”

He attended a forum hosted by the TriForum, a non-profit organization aimed at improving trilateral cooperation between South Korea, the United States and Japan.

O’Brien outlined some scenarios should North Korea’s nuclear weapons become a fact of life.

“So the question is: if the IAEA chairman is right and nuclear weapons are now a fact of life in North Korea… shouldn’t we have something in play to have arms control talks aimed at reducing the number of nuclear weapons – the kind of the traditional arms control model for North Korea?” he said.

“Or maybe you can’t get them to give up their nuclear weapons, but you can get them to only have a certain type of nuclear weapons. They are going to reduce the number of nuclear weapons or allow international inspectors,” he said. added.

He reaffirmed the denuclearization goal when asked about concerns that the U.S. focus on North Korea could shift from nonproliferation to denuclearization if Trump returns to power.

“How to convince them to give up their nuclear weapons will be very difficult,” he said.

“We have to keep trying to do this because we don’t want this proliferation to happen where the Iranians get a nuclear bomb and then the Saudis get a nuclear bomb, and the Turks get a nuclear bomb, and in Asia the nuclear program becomes open and infamous and North Korea becomes accepted as a nuclear power.”

The Kim regime wants to maintain nuclear weapons for the regime’s survival, he noted, saying it is like a “mafia family.”

“(North Koreans) are looking at Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons and what happened to them. They are looking at Gaddafi (who) gave up his weapons of mass destruction, but it did not end well,” he said, referring to the ill-fated Libyan leader who died in 2011.

O’Brien also shared Trump’s comments praising the winning streaks of South Korean female golfers in the United States.

“He says, ‘Have you looked at South Korean golfers? The women have won every tournament by a wide margin. Generally, they never miss a putt,'” he said. “Then he says, ‘They’re murderers. Those South Korean women golfers, they killed Kim Jong-un (during the negotiations)’… So the president had a lot of respect for the career golfers on the LPGA, and rightly so.”

O’Brien cited the US network of alliances in the Indo-Pacific as America’s asset to help defeat China and expressed hope for the expansion of the Quad group, consisting of the United States, India, Japan and Australia.

“I would like to see the Quad expanded to include Seoul, as part of that type called the Quint or something like that. We can’t call it Five Eyes… We might call it Five Guys,” he said.

Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance consisting of the United States, Australia, Great Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

Yonhap