JEJUDO ISLAND -- With North Korea stepping up its nuclear capability and negotiations remaining deadlocked, leading experts called for intensifying multinational efforts to change its course and resolve the issue at the Jeju Forum on Wednesday.

The Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity 2016 kicked off at the International Convention Center on the resort island, bringing together some 4,500 former and incumbent heads of state, prominent policymakers and academics from more than 60 countries.

Under the theme “Asia’s new order and cooperative leadership,” they are set to discuss foreign affairs and security, economy, the environment and other regional and global issues during the three-day conference.

At a session on geopolitical tensions and nuclear temptation in the Asia-Pacific, former top diplomats and analysts sought to address the security situation surrounding the peninsula in the wake of the North’s fourth nuclear test early this year, offering various proposals.

John Ikenberry, a professor in public and international affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey, raised the need to ramp up sanctions and pressure to induce the North to return to the negotiating table just as Iran did. 

“There is a general view in the U.S. that this issue is becoming more dangerous and we can’t simply engage in strategic patience and wait for a good outcome,” he said.

“We’re not close to Iran’s sanctions. I think it’s going to happen -- in the U.S. and South Korea there is a growing sense that as the crisis is looming, we’d better try that coercive option, give it a kind of Iran treatment before we think of other options.”

Defying some concerns about a potential military backlash from the communist state, Ikenberry argued that sanctions were not “hawkish” but a “great alternative to war.”

“Acknowledging North as a nuclear power is not an option. The other is putting more pressure on the regime, the professor added. “There are military consequences of not doing anything.”

But former South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon cautioned against simplifying the case, highlighting the differences between North Korea and Iran such as in their exposure to the outside world.

He took issue with the lack of a “serious” commitment among key stakeholders including the U.S. and China, calling for greater efforts to craft a realistic approach and plug any loopholes in the sanctions regime.

“(U.S. President Barack) Obama’s vision for a world without nuclear weapons is a policy that has failed, as far as Northeast Asia is concerned. China’s policy for a peaceful and stable peninsula has also failed,” said Song, who is now president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

‘As a Korean citizen, I’m concerned no one is seriously engaged in stopping North Korea’s nuclear development. No one has the intention to stop it and invest all political and diplomatic capital to stop the program.”

The former top diplomat raised the need for a mechanism to ensure progress in any future talks, such as an endorsement from Beijing, pointing to the failures in the enforcement of past, hard-won agreements including a 1992 inter-Korean denuclearization declaration, a 1994 Geneva agreement with the U.S., a 2005 joint statement of the six-party talks.

“We could have reached an agreement many times. … But we failed in the implementation,” Song said. “China can give a guarantee on the implementation because the U.S. can’t. … China is the country which holds sway over North Korea’s lifeline.”

But Chen Dongxiao, president of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, warned against overly pressuring Beijing to squeeze its unruly neighbor, emphasizing the significance of talks alongside a strengthened implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“You rely too much upon Beijing to resolve the issue. China is a bridge builder, but all concerned parties should come aboard the bridge,” he said.

“With regard to a powerful implementation of sanctions on DPRK (North Korea), China is not paying lip service. … Yes, we should give more pressure, make Pyongyang pay costs for its violation of resolutions, but on the other side, we should continue to bring nuclear issues in terms of diplomacy.”

On Thursday, the forum will hold an official opening ceremony with a series of congratulatory remarks and keynote addresses by world leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad.

The retired premiers are also scheduled to take part in a debate with their previous counterparts including Han Seung-soo of South Korea, Jim Bolger of New Zealand, Goh Chok Tong of Singapore and Enrico Letta of Italy, while nearly 60 additional roundtables and discussion sessions unfold across the venue.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com) 
      Yoon Min-sik   (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)