Voice of America:
SEOUL—
Even though U.S. President Barack Obama reached historic diplomatic breakthroughs with other longtime adversaries of the United States, it is unlikely he will realize any progress in limiting North Korea’s nuclear program during the remaining year of his presidency.
The Obama administration’s persistent diplomatic outreach paved the way for normalizing relations with communist Cuba and a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
But on North Korea the U.S. has not shown any urgency to restart negotiations to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program, relying instead on sanctions and containment strategies.
Now with U.S. lawmakers focused on recent terrorist attacks and the growing threat from Islamic militants in the Middle East, analysts say, there is little political will in Washington to try to deal with North Korea.
“Given the renewed question of how to deal with terrorism, that just bumps North Korea back down the ladder, even though this issue is not being dealt with and in the long term obviously is a huge problem for national security from a U.S. perspective,” said Professor John Delury, a North Korea analyst at Yonsei University in Seoul…
