WASHINGTON – When the Justice Department charged three North Koreans in February with charges of theft, and an assistant attorney general called North Korea a criminal syndicate with a flag, some Presidential officials Joe Biden’s leading national security officials said.
The rhetoric, the assistants at the justice department complained, was not the toned-down type that senior officials had agreed just days earlier to speak publicly about North Korea, and it was dangerous to oppose Pyongyang.
A senior official said tribute to the National Security Council was “not happy with the language choice” and expressed concern to the Justice Department that it would provoke North Korea.
The episode highlights concerns in the White House about the rise of a looming crisis that the new president has so far not faced in public, and it reveals tensions in the government over whether it is best to move to the North. -Confronting Korean nuclear threat.
A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment, as did the Department of Justice.
Biden’s national security team decided early last month to take a softer public tone towards North Korea, after concluding that the provocation of Pyongyang, while scrutinizing the new government’s policy, was in conflict is with U.S. targets, said one former and three current senior administration officials.
Two of the officials summed up the approach, which was agreed upon during a so-called school principal committee meeting of senior officials hosted by the National Security Council, as ‘do not rock the boat’ – especially when North Korea does not yet have the new administration.
“Until we have a better idea of how we are going to tackle this problem, we will not try to make waves,” an official said.
A few weeks after President Donald Trump took office in 2017, North Korea tested a medium-range missile. And just a month into President Barack Obama’s first term, the North Korean news agency telegraphed preparations for a launch against which the new government had unsuccessfully warned Pyongyang. North Korea did not take such a step during Biden’s government, and officials said Biden’s national security assistants would like to keep it.
At the announcement of the North Koreans’ indictment on February 17, John Demers, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, did not hold back. In addition to calling North Korea a “criminal syndicate,” he said business people were “the world’s leading bank robbers.” The official said the message was not coordinated with the White House.
Biden has repeatedly promised that the Department of Justice will handle the investigation independently during its administration.
The official’s North Korean policy review is not expected to be completed until April or early May. A senior government official said the review included talks with Trump administration officials involved in North Korea’s policies. The issue is likely to be part of high-level talks between Chinese officials and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Alaska National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sung Kim, the acting assistant secretary of state of affairs in East Asia and the Pacific, said on Friday that Blinken would keep Chinese officials informed of the North Korean government’s policy review and announced that he had a denial. of the Korean Peninsula. ‘
The White House said on Monday that the government had begun reaching out to North Korea via various diplomatic channels in the middle of last month, but received no response. Reuters reported the outreach for the first time over the weekend. A senior administration official said the intent of the outreach was to “reduce the risks of escalation.”
A former senior administration official said current officials had made it clear privately that Biden did not currently want to put much pressure on North Korea’s policies, in the absence of a large, unsolicited concession from Pyongyang. and that the purpose of the outreach is ‘to try to fend off a provocation that would force their hand’ before the policy review is completed and to demonstrate to China that the US is making an effort.
