How the Fate of the Iran Deal Could Affect Talks With North Korea

How the Fate of the Iran Deal Could Affect Talks With North Korea
Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton poses with South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Yoon Soon-gu during a meeting, Seoul, South Korea, April 23, 2018 (AP photo by Ahn Young-joon).

Unless you’re Rip Van Winkle, you probably already know that next month, international attention will be on the world’s two acute nuclear weapons cases: Iran and North Korea. May 12 is the deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump to decide if he will continue to waive sanctions against Iran as part of the seven-nation nuclear agreement signed in 2015. And all month long, teams in Washington and Pyongyang will be planning an unprecedented summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with the North’s nuclear program the main item on the agenda.

There are at least two ways in which these two chronic problems of international security are related. The first is familiar: Would ending U.S. commitment to the Iran deal affect the prospects for a negotiated rollback of North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities? The second is often neglected: To what extent do the regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang see their nuclear programs as a permanent part of their national security strategies, or might they consider their nuclear programs as a means to an end? Are they willing to actually give up their nuclear programs in exchange for some other guarantee of security—for their own sake, as regimes, and for their country?

As May 12 nears, French President Emmanuel Macron has the baton. During his state visit to Washington this week, he is expected to make the case on behalf of all of his European partners for the U.S. to remain in the agreement. He will presumably argue that any change in the deal’s legal and political status would provide Iran a chance to resume now-proscribed activities, making the Iranian nuclear danger much more immediate.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review