By Bernama
Kuala Lumpur : The United States is actually not sincere in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue, allowing the matter to prolong up to today, a seminar was told Friday.
Head of the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Malaya, Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Nasrudin Mohd Akhir said Washington had been insincere in the matter from the beginning and that many pledges such as energy aid to North Korea were not fully honoured.
He said the US should stay away or reduce its role in the issue by letting the international community encourage North Korea and South Korea to find a lasting solution.
“If your (US) actions are not sincere and (you) are always labelling North Korea all kinds of labels like ‘axis of evil’ and a terrorist breeding ground, how (are you) to hope that North Korea will fully end its nuclear programme,” Mohd Nasrudin told the Seminar on the North Korea Issue here Friday.
He said the US was always accusing North Korea of running a nuclear programme to make nuclear weapons, something denied by Pyongyang, but last year North Korea had agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor and other atomic facilities and provide information on its programme in exchange for economic aid and political consessions.
But negotiations towards that were hindered because the US accused North Korea of not providing full and complete information on its nuclear programme and this had angered the country’s regime, he said.
Dr Mohd Nasrudin said any provocation of North Korea by the US only brought about bad implications for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula as the area was not fully free from idealogical differences and elements of the Cold War.
He said the US must realise that its approach in handling the matter by provoking North Korea should be changed to one of sincere engagement.
At the same time, he said, South Korea as an economic power in Asia must have more economic cooperation and investment in North Korea as, according to him, economic ties were helpful in ending or averting a conflict.
A researcher on the North Korea nuclear issue, Rahmat Aidil Djubair, said the US was not being sincere in resolving the issue as it had many interests in East Asia.
Instead, he said, Washington wanted to use the issue to ensure and broaden its influence in the strategic region and retain its military forces in South Korea.
According to Rahmat, the US hurled all kinds of propaganda so that the international community doubted North Korean sincerity in resolving the issue but failed to provide solid evidence.
He said the opportunity to resolve the issue would be better if the US withdrew its forces from South Korea, which had been there for a long time and which caused North Korea to feel threatened.
“In this issue, America is playing a tug-of-war … it is not sincere,” Rahmat said.