Denuclearisation of Korean peninsula will be hard to verify, South Korean official says

Despite the pledges made by the leaders of North and South Korea at their landmark summit meeting last month, the peace process on the Korean peninsula remains fragile and achieving the goal of complete denuclearisation remains a major challenge, a top South Korean official said.

Ambassador for Public Diplomacy Enna Park told the South China Morning Post that instituting a fully verifiable dismantlement process would be a difficult and time-consuming procedure, especially since the international community did not have all the facts about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.

“Pyongyang possesses a higher level nuclear programme than Libya and South Africa had in the past, and we don’t know the full details,” she said, adding that it took more than a year for South Africa to completely dismantle its nuclear weapons, and the time frame would be longer for North Korea.

“While verification is key [to the denuclearisation process], how to make a reliable mechanism is the big question.”