Promoting creative engagement with North Korea – Ep. 277

North Korea has refused nearly all diplomatic outreach since mid-2019, choosing instead to go full bore into weapons development while pledging never again to participate in denuclearization talks.

But for Keith Luse of the National Committee on North Korea, this lack of engagement stems at least partly from Washington’s own policy oscillations.

Luse joins the NK News podcast to discuss how to engage the DPRK across diverse issues, from humanitarianism to nuclear weapons. He talks about how lack of information on the outside world hinders North Korea’s ability to maximize the best outcomes for itself, why he thinks Kim Jong Un's economic ambitions are real and should give us hope for future prospects of international cooperation, his multiple visits to Pyongyang and more.

Keith Luse is the executive director of the National Committee on North Korea (@NCNKorea). He has also served as senior Asia policy adviser at the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee. 

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot (@JaccoZed) exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.