Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel Keynote Remarks at the JoongAng-CSIS Forum 2016

 The CSIS Korea Chair will be featuring a series of Korea Platforms with remarks from the distinguished speakers at the annual JoongAng Ilbo-CSIS Forum took place in Washington D.C. on May 3, 2016. The first in the series is keynote address by the Honorable Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

Daniel R. Russel
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Center for Strategic and International Studies | Washington, D.C.
May 3, 2016

Thank you, Victor, for the introduction. I’m delighted to be here at CSIS with so many great Korea hands and old friends.

Honored to be the warm-up act for Rich Armitage and Wendy Sherman later in the day!

There’s always a lot to discuss when it comes to North Korea, but this conference is particularly timely given the Party Congress later this week and the tempo of DPRK provocations.

It’s a great time to be a North Korea analyst or policy maker – it’s also a lousy time to be a North Korean Musudan project manager!

Today you’ll be wrestling with questions about the Korean paradigm – the framework for dealing with the challenges of the Korean Peninsula.

So what might be helpful is for me to lay out the elements of our Korea policy: what have been the constants; what we’re doing now; and what we’re working towards.

I want to begin by stressing two points: first, dealing with North Korea is only a fraction of our important, flourishing relationship with the ROK. You will hear more about that from Ambassador Lippert, I’m sure.

And second, we are addressing the challenges posed by North Korea’s bad choices in the context of important shifts in regional dynamics.