United Nations headquarters

A don, Dr Olawale Lawal, has called on the United States and other permanent members of the UN Security Council to take urgent steps to tackle the North Korean threat to global peace.

Lawal, a lecturer in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy at the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.

He noted that the recalcitrance of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in his quest to develop nuclear weapons, was capable of endangering global peace.

“North Korea is heating up the international system with its insistence on developing and proliferating nuclear weapons.

“International relations is governed by treaties and conventions, and the Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) developed in 1968, has been in operation since 1972.

“This treaty restricted the possession of such weapons to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely: US, Russia, Britain, France and China.

“Though North Korea pulled out of the NPT arrangement in 2005, it needs not act as a “refusenik” by brazenly flouting its provisions,’’ he said.

The university lecturer, therefore, advised the world powers to stop playing politics with the North Korean threat and take decisive action.

“North Korea has carried out several tests of its nuclear weaponry, and is also boasting of possessing the Inter- Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).

“The idea is to make a political statement, as well as to present a radical posturing to the international order, but this is creating another version of the “Cold War”.

“Considering the temperament of the country’s youthful leader and certain extreme actions he has taken with regards to his domestic politics, there is the need to check his international influence,’’ he said.

Lawal suggested that countries like China and the US had the capacity to curtail the growing negative influence of North Korea, in the interest of global harmony.

“Within the Korean peninsula, China is capable of checking that threat, while America can check it from the outside.

“If the US decides to wage war against North Korea now, there will be enough international cover based on North Korea having pulled out of, and flouting the NPT,’’ he said.

The lecturer, however, ruled out the possibility of a “third world war’’ based on the North Korean threat.

He, however, suggested that the US needed the cooperation of countries like Russia and China, to continue to sustain world peace.

“When we say world war, we do not actually mean that all the countries of the world would be at war.

“The idea of a world war implies that important stakeholders in international relations are in conflict; we have to consider inter-state relations and their importance.

“Countries like the US, Russia and China are “regional influentials’’ within their respective regions, and are able to curtail the excesses of other smaller countries within those regions.

“The US, for one, has international cover to deal with Kim Jong-un and neutralise his excesses when “strategic patience’’ is discarded, but the support of Russia and China are important,’’ he added.

North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, with Pyongyang as the nation’s capital and largest city.

To the north and northwest, the country is bordered by China along the Amnok (known as the Yalu River in China) and the Tumen river; it is bordered to the south by South Korea, with a heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two.
North Korea’s active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, the United States, and India.

It possesses nuclear weapons, and is an atheist state, with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged.
North Korea–United States relations are hostile and developed primarily during the Korean War, when the U.S. Air Force bombed and napalmed parts of North Korea, leaving about 20 per cent of its population dead.

In recent years, their relations have been largely defined by North Korea’s five tests of nuclear weapons, its development of long-range missiles capable of striking targets thousands of miles away, and its ongoing threats to strike the United States and South Korea with nuclear weapons and conventional forces.

During his presidency, George W. Bush referred to North Korea as part of “The Axis of evil’’ because of the threat of its nuclear capabilities.
As the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States have no formal diplomatic relations, Sweden (an EU member state) acts as the protecting power of United States interests in North Korea, for consular matters.

Since the Korean War, the United States has maintained a strong military presence in South Korea. However, the United States has considered, de jure, South Korea as the sole legitimate representative of all of Korea.

(NAN)