tv Inside Story Al Jazeera March 28, 2021 10:30am-11:01am +03
10:30 am
internationally. as i said. this is the 3rd year i'm attending the national championship last year i got a gold and 2 silvers and i received an invitation to the national team. but it's in public places like this that the sport is getting most attention inspiring others to join in well some simply appreciate the art form i said big al jazeera there are . you watching all of us there with me still rob a reminder of our top news stories at least 14 people have been injured in a suicide bomb attack on a cathedral in indonesia it was carried out in the city of macassar as a congregation was gathering for the 1st day of the easter week military chiefs from the u.s. and nearly a dozen allies are issued a rare joint statement denouncing me of all security forces saying there should be protecting not harming their citizens after at least 114 people were killed on
10:31 am
saturday telling chain has more from bangkok in neighboring thailand. there's no hiding the soldiers in between the police anymore they're just coming out there's no hiding the automatic weapons in amongst the rubber bullets and those rifles they're just firing indiscriminate and we saw that out on the streets yesterday the funerals are now starting to take place all across. we've seen the madden manderlay . and this i think is an opportunity for people to come out and show some sort of protest a lot of the street protests haven't been taking place there because people are planning to attend those funerals the security services as i understand it so far have backed off and that's something they have done in the last couple of weeks let those funerals go ahead unhindered. chile has launched its strictest coronavirus lockdown yet to curb the rise in cases more than 80 percent of the population is under mandatory isolation the president says it's necessary to ease pressure on the
10:32 am
health care system. the number of quote a virus deaths in brazil has topped 3000 for the 2nd day in a row the country now accounts for a quarter of the world's covert 980 allergies and health experts are warning it could get worse intensive care units in most states are near or at full capacity the french energy giant total has halted operations in mozambique after an attack in the northern town of parma nearly $200.00 people including foreign nationals are trapped in a hotel where fighting is in its 5th day the hotel has been attacked by fighters linked to ice all. the attempts are being made to move the ship that's blocked the zoo is canal in egypt for 6 days the vessels that is now free and salvage operators hope that high tides will help their operation those are the headlines here on al-jazeera back with more news in the heartland next it's inside story do stay with us. told to i'll just see what. can you tell me
10:33 am
with the government you represent is now illegitimate and we listen we did not set the fence material for any country the iraq conflict and yet we meet with the global news makers untold about the stories that matter on syria. from north korea with a warning john yang threatens the u.s. following criticism of its latest missile tests so how should president joe biden handle one of america's most delicate diplomatic challenges this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program. north korea often test fires ballistic missiles and weapons to send a signal to the world it's a practice experts call weaponized diplomacy and it appears the latest launches are
10:34 am
a message to its traditional foe the united states john yang launched 2 short range missiles into the sea of japan on thursday analysts suggest they may be able to carry nuclear warheads the test was condemned internationally u.s. president joe biden says it violated u.n. sanctions designed to rein in the north's nuclear program we're consoling with our allies and partners. and. there will be responses if they choose to escalate. we will respond accordingly. but i'm also prepared. for some form of diplomacy. but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization. this drew a sharp rebuke from the official who supervised the tests in a statement repealing chill's says the comments were a provocation that revealed biden's deep seated hostility towards north korea he
10:35 am
accused the us of using gangster like logic to oppose pyongyang's right to self-defense and he threatened more action against washington while vowing to expand the north's military power the events have drawn attention to how the new u.s. administration with joe biden as president will deal with north korea the white house has indicated it's likely to reverse the previous administration's policies on north korea and is in the final stages of a policy review on pyongyang u.s. troops have resumed joint military exercises with south korea which were cancelled by president donald trump north korean leader kim jong un and trump met 3 times to discuss denuclearization the talks collapsed without a deal north korea wants the u.s. to lift sanctions and end military drills in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. i all right let's bring in our guests from seoul young adjunct professor at the graduate school of national defense strategy at how dumb university. from tucson also in south korea is robert
10:36 am
kelly professor of political science and diplomacy a post on national university and in vienna is tarik rove former head of the verification and security policy coordination office at the international atomic energy agency thank you all for joining us robert let me start with you today at its core are these missile tests by north korea essentially the country trying to get the biden administration's attention basically saying hey we're still here pay attention to us yes i think so north korea traditionally holds some kind of stunned when there's a new president can south korea or a new president in the united states this is a way of suggesting that you know north korea cannot be bullied north korea cannot be pushed around the north koreans have a sort of an off ends it or kind of positive understanding of deterrence which is to say they don't just rebuild a big army and say you know we're impregnable they also going to lash out occasionally to prove to us that they're still capable even though north korea's economy is pretty far behind it and south korea out he says that technologically
10:37 am
and so that's why i read these tests i mean there's been a lot of sort of media attention and last week or so is this a challenge to joe biden and the rest of us i don't really think we need to over read too much like that i think rather this is just sort of north korea kind of doing the traditional things that it does we had a brief hiatus there under dolls from when tom personally was meeting with the north korean leader but but that was pretty rare and that has sort of fallen apart so it seems to me at least that we're kind of sliding back towards the status quo a pre-term status quo young you heard robert there is say that he believes we're sort of sliding back into the pre trump status quo when it comes to north korea and their actions let me ask you i mean north korea had been issuing warnings they had been saying that the u.s. was going to pay a price is it at all a surprise that there was 1st this test of a short range missiles and then that was followed by the test of the short range ballistic missiles yeah i mean it's no wonder. always has been acted.
10:38 am
i mean when u.s. tour other countries ses says something about sanctions they're always trying to shoot what is the missile. so far. short range ballistic missile. i mean u.s. or other country doesn't care too much well i mean it's totally different this time target based on your experience with the i.a.e.a.'s north korea program is there anything that the un or the i.a.e.a. or other international bodies can do to improve the situation i don't think so i think it's now again back in the court of both washington and pyongyang to sort this out even though many people criticize president trump for stepping out of the iran nuclear deal with really believe that his north korea policy of meeting
10:39 am
with kim jungle in 3 times up having the singapore declaration that hanoi apparently north korea offered to dismantle the young be on nuclear site which is nearly 80 percent of north korea's nuclear program but he was dime made by the pompidou a bulletin team and we had a failure so the united nations by having more sanctions or the i.a.e.a. i don't think at the moment are in the position to improve the situation robert how difficult has this made things for the biden ministration when it comes to its approach to north korea and when are we going to be finding out more about the buy administration's policy going forward toward north korea. i think that north korea is such an established problem now for the united states and south korea and also trigger pan that i don't think that a minor sort of acting out like this by north korea is really sort of problem i don't think that it's really fair to sort of say this is a crisis but the bottom ministrations on the right that because everybody knew this
10:40 am
was coming right i mean we know that we had this again we had this or unique hiatus because the u.s. president personally when it was donald trump the north korean leader of them that it's actually quite similar to what murtha has done basically for decades and so i don't really think it's fair to suggest that it's a crisis i know also doesn't have a lot of good options and i think everybody in the world really realizes that at this point 5 can strike north korea sanctioning north korea further doesn't really do much good because we don't really trade or have any and i'm a permissions with north korean in any case anyway right so i don't biden is confronted with something i think that's fairly expected so again ty don't think i let the right people gin this thing up and do something big i think they're probably ok if they just sort of talk to the allies and hold him as for the policy are you i imagine they'll come back the next month or so maybe you'll be accelerated now because of this and i imagine actually won't tell us anything we don't already know if you actually look at u.s. foreign policy towards north korea since the sixty's it's kind of been the same the whole time right which is sort of containment isolation sanction and deterrence and
10:41 am
you can sort of like change that a little bit on the edges but you know our options with north korea are actually quite limited there's really not that much we can do and so here we are having the same discussion we've had for decades quite honestly young what is the response been with regard to south korean defense mechanisms in the past when it comes to north korean missile tests and what is the response now to the most recent tests i mean d. m d the neighboring country yes. yeah you know. first i mean this story response came from japan and the prime minister mr sousa himself said that this is the by late by only one of the. u.n. sanction and and with his greed i mean us also sat stormy against this you know sure a new system is
10:42 am
a runge and well japan has a good reason to do this because 1st i mean the local and biggest really near also the and the toddlers from the north korea can be some kind of you know obstruction and secondly i mean as the one of the reading country in part i mean the jet fan wants to you know take control of these you know the international. political situation in northeast asia and so for the china i mean it's always always the same because i mean the chinese always has been has been saying that the maintaining peace and stability on the korean peninsula and i mean the resolving issues through dialogue i mean that's what they have been saying let me go right now to tarik target where do north korea's nuclear
10:43 am
capabilities stand now what's the state of the country's nuclear program. well north korea actually has one of the oldest nuclear programs in the world they started in $1053.00 at the moment they now have a complete nuclear fuel cycle they have uranium mining they have uranium enrichment that is enriching uranium to reactor great uranium and also to weapon grade uranium which is over 90 percent they also have a plutonium separation capability and they have obviously demonstrated that they can make nuclear warheads that carried out 6 nuclear tests and if one looks at the use of the 6 nuclear tests each one of them has been bigger than the previous one the last test in september 2017 was nearly a 140 he looked on and so north korea and its 6 tests has demonstrated a much more advanced nuclear weapons capability than india or pakistan did so and $998.00 and therefore if this was a full program and north korea has created
10:44 am
a lot of bargaining chips u.s. policy to its north korea in my view has been an abject failure as have sanctions so we need a new way of dealing with north korea president trump i think started down the right line but then his own bureaucracy and establishment stymied him so now as james clapper the former director of national intelligence in the u.s. said a few years ago it is a reality that north korea has a nuclear weapon capability and it also has a delivery capability we need to negotiate with that and north korea would recant some form of nuclear weapons capability even after some agreement is reached with the united states and others robert you were talking earlier about how in some ways this is more business as usual when it comes to north korea you know in the test that they conduct how much further do you think kim jong un is going to be willing to go at this stage to get the attention of the white house and also in order to gain leverage washington. that's actually an excellent question right there yes
10:45 am
koreans i think i scream do you want to bargain for i think your your other guest sort of hinted at this too i do actually believe the north koreans would like to come to the table they just want a lot more than the u.s. is going to give i think that's the real reason why there is no movement here i don't think it's because u.s. leadership is sort of softer or you know flimsy or whatever things alter the north koreans want a lot and they're going to hold out and they're in a pretty good position because it's very good for it's very hard for us to punish north korea otherwise it's almost a biting people come and offer something really substantial when i say substantial i mean really big i mean like withdrawing a u.s. closing he was based on calling you know u.s. air power to south korea something they are they will ask for a lot and the buy people are going to offer that which means in 6 months or something like that the north koreans probably do something like this again you know we've seen that kind of cycle in the past and as long as you can't really hit north korea's launch can strike as long bloody nose too risky as long as you can't really you know hit them hard very much with sanctions because north korea cheats and you know a lot of north korea's economic activity doesn't go through us anyway i mean or 3
10:46 am
it's very hard for us to get a handle on north korea and as a result they can basically hold and the leadership doesn't care of their population suffers from the sanctions either break them care about their own people so they can continue to hold that there's going to wait and wait and wait and wait until the americans ultimately offer something really good and the american public and u.s. congress just aren't there yet but like wait 5 years you know i interrupted you a few moments ago as you were starting to talk about china let me go and ask you now we know that north korea wants to have closer relations with china what's china stance at the moment 1st of all how are they viewing you know these most recent tests secondly how much closer do they want to be with north korea. yeah and the same is always liked is china's position on this you know the sanction issue or i mean they it always has been the same they are talking about these you know maintaining peace and stability on on an issue and resolving issues through dialogue and consultation that's what they have been saying like i'm for saudi for
10:47 am
years but the thing is that when u.s. or other country wants to you know. impose sanction china you still want i mean who has been you know. keeping keeping any you know. at discussion and they you they you who are the only hold the sanction and i ask oh yes they can and after that. when only after the u.s. or other country you know. some see that a little bit on the sanction and then china reads i mean that's what they have been on you know u.n. u.n. . sanction so for china. north korea is really really good trick cheap car can be used against united states or
10:48 am
japan so it's kind of like really good. medium for the op sure balancing so while china will hold the cards as long as they can. tarik what do we know so far about the types of ballistic missiles that were tested by north korea in the most recent tests there have been reports that north korea had indicated that these were modified versions of what's called a solid fuel de-listing missile do we know more about that type of missile perhaps how easy it is to transport or to launch. so just as with the nuclear program north korea has a full suite of ballistic and cruise missiles they have short range or battlefield missiles they have medium range missiles and they also have long range missiles so apparently 2 of the tests conducted this year were short range missiles that did
10:49 am
not violate u.n. sanctions and then the 2 other tests apparently were of a medium range missile and i think this was north korea's way of showing that it was still abiding by its moratorium of no nuclear tests and no long range ballistic missile test i wouldn't focus specifically on the type of missiles that were tested because north korea has the capability as regards sanctions nobody can point is single case in history where sanctions have reversed their w m d and nuclear chemical or biological weapons program in the countries sentients did not affect south africa the fact iraq didn't affect iran didn't stop india didn't stop pakistan and it's clear they haven't stopped north korea so we really need to have a completely new strategy it also means that the more the sanctions bite the north koreans then turn to cybercrime and other ways of getting the money that they need so they will get what they want and the leaderships have shown in india pakistan
10:50 am
iran iraq and also north korea as one of your guests mentioned that if the population has to tighten its belt that's what they will do and north korea has also seen how iraq libya and iran have been squeezed because they didn't have nuclear weapons nobody tractions north korea was going to attack nobody says all options are on the table so north korea knows and they also know that india and pakistan have been accepted as defacto nuclear weapons states and unfortunately because the bad policies over the past decades as i mentioned the failure of the agreed framework and so on we have to now accept this unfortunate reality that we have a nice country that has a nuclear where. well and also the means of delivery and therefore we need to look at some sort of a phased approach where the p r k gives us the assurance that it will not further busy up its missile and nuclear capability not carry out more long range missile tests and not carry out more nuclear weapons death in return for some sanctions relief and then we can hope for
10:51 am
some form of incremental change our balancing a better balancing of the situation there robert u.s. secretary of state and city blinken and u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin just recently went and visited both seoul and tokyo i want to ask you about how that trip was received by japanese and south korean counterparts obviously a big topic of discussion was north korea north korea north korea's nuclear program were japan and south korea reassured by that visit i think they were i think they were i think a lot of it at least in the 1st 6 months maybe 8 months were buying people and not just here in asia but with lots and lots of u.s. allies to sort of cleaning up the damage at the trumper ministration. i mean president trump was erratic he was unpredictable he's all sorts of how language things on television he didn't care for u.s. allies they were shirkers and free riders and everything and so i think a big part of what the biden trip was with the biden people recently was just
10:52 am
telling everybody it's like we're back in america you're here things are normal again we're going to be sort of like running us foreign policy with depression alls who are competent who know what's going on and things like that are actually best and who actually believe the united states should stay in asia and things like that so i think that was actually probably like 60 or 70 percent of it just proving to the japanese and south koreans like the americans are normal again after this sort of like we're hiatus and that's why i don't think you heard anything really spectacular it was a lot of sort of like alliance reassurance you know we're here and it was think i don't know i'm terry gross and what we call our north koreans and what about china and you know things like that all that is sort of just par for the course for the u.s. relationships out. you're in asia so actually the meeting was actually pretty spectacular which is actually a good thing it's actually really good when americans on his meetings are not actually fireworks like they were the last 4 years so i think it was actually quite young i saw you nodding along to some of what robert was saying there so i wanted to see if you had
10:53 am
a response but i also wanted to ask you about the same thing which was from your perspective you know how did japan how to south korea how did other u.s. allies in the region feel about that trip and were they reassured when it comes to the u.s. stance toward north korea you know of course i mean the way jet powered would do it but i mean for the south korean government is kind of like there was a little bit of confusion well i mean. everyone think that the too close to talk in korea went well but i mean there's some of course says that something otherwise i mean there's a. disagreement between us and korea against the these you know north korean nuclear new nuclear. problem the scenes that contre all the news station of the south korea is kind of sympathetic to the north korea and still wants to you know summit to wait kim jong un so says korean government he's better much careful
10:54 am
in comments on north korea with sanctions or some sort of some other saying even. those koreans you've got an idea to use are not poorly or pretty all dressed in this government so i think that not everyone on the same page so next week there will be a trilateral. tour in washington between the u.s. japan and korea also from south korea to be a director of the national security council will be able there so there will be some you know agreements i should expect. what's the level of concern about the idea that if the u.s. were to reenter into talks with north korea that north korea might just you know try to string that process out and utilize that time as a way to bolster their nuclear program well you know their nuclear program is already as advanced as it can be if frankly they had tested the current one uclear
10:55 am
weapon in september 2017 so what more is left so this argument that north korea will screen get on and then whether it vaster nuclear program to me doesn't really make very much sense people believe that they may have 3040 or maybe 50 nuclear weapons they can make between $7.00 to $12.00 apparently a year so they have to be comfortable so we really need a really more realistic approach people like dr sic protector the former director of los alamos laboratory who's visited north korea several times who was shown their enrichment facility he's a stanford university a few years ago he proposed quite a realistic space program robert einhorn wrote a recent article for 38 north that is also talking about her face nuclear program and i recall the op ed written in the wall street journal in august of 2017 by secretary still listen and mattis where they were mentioned before knows which i think should be could be repeated by the biden ministration which is no regime
10:56 am
change no regime collapsed. accelerated reunification and no u.s. troops crossing the demilitarized zone the president biden has already insulted the russian president he's insulted the chinese president he's insulted kim jong un as a hitler and as a tug and then how does one expect to have a meaningful dialogue when the leader of one country the man interlocutor is insulting the others and then inviting them to a dialogue so a president biden i think who is known for rash decisions and basically insulting foreign leaders needs also to be restrained we criticize fred. sort of prompt quite justifiably but president biden there is no angel either he's not going to wave a magic wand and things are going to fall into place that we have a lot of hard work ahead we need to sit down seriously when it was working with the north koreans. had pretty good outcomes in terms of the implementation of what was
10:57 am
agreed it's when the politics went sour between the united states and the d.p. r. k. and then the verification arrangements carried out by the also that lamar robert we just have about a minute left let me just ask you a soul has pushed for a engagement with pyongyang and has urged the international community to ease sanctions and to provide more aid for north koreans are we going to see that happen no. the u.s. government is still committed to the nuclear station a pretty robust form of it at that world opinion i think broadly is on the side of that to the south korean president went to europe for years on trying to get the europeans or budge on sanctions they didn't the japanese won't budge on either even the chinese have voted for the sanctions u.n. security council even if they don't really force them as well they might you know maybe the north koreans conserve like i don't know signal what they're going to want a little bit or something like that but i think i think just too many countries in the world too many people in the world a too scared of north korea having an unchecked nuclear program and so i think
10:58 am
sanctions are going to be used to sort of a check to get the north koreans to behave better nuclear weapons all right we've run out of times we're going to have to leave the conversation and thanks so much to our guests young robert kelly and todrick route. and thank you too for watching you can see this and all our previous programs again any time by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story for me i have a gentleman the whole team here by her. april on al-jazeera from a 3rd wave to the vaccine rollout we'll bring you the latest developments from around the world a year into the coronavirus pandemic one a one east skeins rare behind the scenes access into the secretive world of
10:59 am
japanese sumo. could president into still be secure a 6th time in power join us on april 11th for the chad election. the award winning our choice returns but stories of those striving to reduce or negative impact on the planets as president joe biden kept his campaign promises we'll have special coverage and in-depth analysis of his 1st $100.00 days in the oval office april. when freedom of the press is under threat demonstrators and journalists are dealing with internet outages police intimidation and charges of sedation and the state line becomes the default and media in england about looking for images that lead to death and that it came to these guys that just how did he create a new system makes it hard for people to know what's real and what's not step outside the mainstream to shift the focus covering the way the news discovered the
11:00 am
listening post on a. showcase of the best documentary films from across the necklace on al-jazeera. a suicide bomb attacks a cathedral in indonesia island at the start of the week at least 14 people are injured. barb's a whole romany watching al-jazeera live my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 30 minutes at least 60 hours of damage from the fire in mere miles the latest crackdown against protesters a day after 114 p. .
22 Views
1 Favorite
Uploaded by TV Archive on
