16th Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity: Reconsidering Arms Control with Nuclear North Korea

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. Fifteen years later, Pyongyang is in possession of an estimated 30 to 60 nuclear warheads, which its missiles can potentially carry all the way to the White House. The Biden Administration is the fourth in a row in the US that has to contend with a nuclear North Korea. Both sanctions and negotiations have failed to solve the North Korean nuclear conundrum. And as long as North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme continues to be a problem to solve, peace on the Korean Peninsula will be but a dream. Could an arms control deal be the key to the resolution to North Korea’s nuclear issue and unlock peace between the two Koreas?

In this session, panelists critically assessed the prospects, benefits, and drawbacks of a nuclear arms control deal with North Korea.  In particular, they assessed the stakes for nuclear negotiations with North Korea as the Biden Administration seeks to implement its policy review, and reconsidered the utility of arms control as a way to improve relations between the US and North Korea and between the two Koreas.

This session was part of the 16th Jeju Forum for Peace & Prosperity.