N. Korea’s wedging strategy will not work: U.S. official

North Korea’s old tactic of sidelining the South while seeking better relations with the U.S. will no longer work under the robust alliance, a senior White House official said Thursday.

Sydney Seiler, Korea policy chief at the National Security Council, also reiterated the U.S. position that it would be hard to imagine significant improvement in relations between Washington and Pyongyang without progress on denuclearization.

“North Korea’s long-term objective of trying to establish communications with the U.S. and try to seal off South Korea, it’s a traditional wedging strategy,” he said at a meeting with a group of Korean-American community leaders.

“Fears that Pyongyang will manage to talk only with Washington, bypassing Seoul, are a thing of the past.”

Seiler’s remarks came as suspicions were raised once again that Pyongyang might be trying to drive a wedge between the allies in its offensive for dialogue.

The North has sought direct government talks with the U.S. while it has not responded yet to Seoul’s call for what it says would be the last dialogue proposal over the normalization of the joint industrial park in Gaeseong.

At times of friction in policy coordination between the South and U.S., Pyongyang tried to drive a wedge between the allies and take advantage of it to hold direct talks with the U.S. for concessions.

But in more recent times things have changed. When it comes to the North’s nuclear adventurism, the allies have closely coordinated to pressure it to renounce its nuclear arms and stop any destabilizing actions.

Meanwhile, despite its budget woes, Washington reportedly plans to continuously deploy at least six B-52 nuclear bombers to Guam, a key strategic base in the Pacific, to defend Koreans and Asian allies against a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, revealed the plan Wednesday.

The U.S. has been grappling with congressionally mandated automatic defense cuts. The Pentagon faces cuts of more than $50 billion next year and $500 billion over the next decade.

By Song Sang-ho ()