North Korea Hangs Up the Phone

Posted: July 20th, 2016

By Thomas Cynkin

Dr. Thomas Cynkin is Vice President at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School, and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Cynkin previously headed the Washington Office of Fujitsu Ltd. as Vice President and General Manager. A former Foreign Service Officer, he served seven years as a Japanese-speaking diplomat in Japan, and was the Asian affairs advisor to two Deputy Secretaries of State and two US Ambassadors to the UN.

North Korea informed the U.S. on July 10th that it would cut off the New York channel of communication to the U.S. Government. If American policymakers lament their own lack of leverage against North Korea, this move demonstrates the limited options Pyongyang has with which to respond to the July 6 U.S. human rights sanctions against the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and other top officials. For the North, options on the table include words, harshness toward U.S. citizen detainees, or nuclear/missile tests.

“Because the United States did not accept our demand that the sanctions be retracted, we are taking concrete actions one by one, the first of which is to completely cut off the New York channel of communication, the only official point of contact that has existed between the two sides,” the Korean Central News Agency announced July 11.

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