President Yoon Call North Korea ‘Irrational’ and Predicts They Will Launch Provocation Before Election

Here are the latest comments from President Yoon on North Korea:

 President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday that the North Korean regime is an “irrational group” that has legalized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons and will likely carry out multiple provocations to interfere with South Korea’s April parliamentary elections.

Yoon’s remark came as North Korea has ratcheted up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with a series of weapons tests since the start of the year, including back-to-back cruise missile launches last Wednesday, Sunday and Tuesday. (…..)

“Such actions themselves are anti-national and anti-unification, and provocations and threats that run counter to history,” Yoon said while presiding over the annual central integrated defense council meeting at the former presidential compound of Cheong Wa Dae.

“The North Korean regime is an irrational group that has legalized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons as the only (country) in the world to do so. If it was a sensible regime, it would abandon its nuclear weapons and search for a way for its people to live, but the North Korean regime is bent only on maintaining its hereditary, totalitarian regime,” he said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I think what President Yoon gets wrong is that the Kim regime is rationale from their perspective. It makes sense for them to continue to conduct weapons tests and maintain their status as a global threat to be taken seriously. Why would the U.S. make any serious concessions to North Korea during any potential negotiations if North Korea did not have proven ICBM and nuclear capabilities? These capabilities have also become a source of national pride for North Korea, a country that has little to be proud of.

It also makes sense that the Kim regime is going to continue to conduct provocations before April’s parliamentary elections. To get to any potential negotations where concessions favorable to North Korea are made they need to get Yoon and other conservatives out of office. The parlimentary elections are the first step to politically neutering ROK conservatives and set conditions for another Korean leftist to become the next President.

North Korea ultimately wants to get sanctions dropped while giving up little to nothing in return. They almost got this deal during the Moon administration and South Korea and the Trump administration in the U.S.