Recent overtures between North and South Korea are positive steps but of little relevance to the pressing problem of the North Korean missile threat and the world's response, according to a former U.S. ambassador who led six-party talks in the mid 2000s to try to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Christopher Hill spoke with Colorado Matters. He is a former dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and now serves as a senior adviser to DU’s chancellor.
Hill's comments come days after a false alarm about an impending missile attack threw Hawaii into a 38-minute panic. The warning highlighted a year of rapid progress for North Korea’s missile program and an increasingly tough diplomatic line by the Trump administration.
Last week seemed to produce a thaw -- high-ranking officials from North and South Korea held their first talks in more than two years, reinstated a military hotline between the two countries, and agreed that North Korea would send a delegation to next month’s Olympics in South Korea, just 50 miles south of the demilitarized zone between the countries. But Hill said those actions are only a respite, not a resolution to the North Korean nuclear threat.
