North Korea military threat prompts international meeting in Canada

Canada and the U.S. are co-hosting a meeting of concerned nations in Vancouver in the new year to increase diplomatic pressure on North Korea, as the risk of potentially catastrophic military conflict looms.

South Korea and Japan are expected to attend the January 16 meeting, along with a host of other nations as part of what Canada’s foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland said was a show of solidarity.

"This is another visible sign that the international community is acting in concert to speak to the government of North Korea and to say this is threatening us all and the pressure will increase until the behaviour changes," Freeland said Tuesday.

The meeting aims to pressure countries to strengthen economic sanctions against North Korea and to fully implement UN security council resolutions. Russia has employed North Korean workers in the past, and China has continued to provide crude oil to the nation’s refineries, despite calls from U.S. to cut off supplies.

Diplomatic backchannels

While Canada isn’t a major player in the conflict, Trudeau has raised the alarm about a missile from North Korea potentially entering Canadian air space. The prime minister suggested last month that his warm relations with Cuba could open a backchannel for negotiations between the U.S. with North Korea. Cuba and North Korea are considered allies.

Freeland announced the Vancouver meeting Tuesday evening during U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s first visit to Canada.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called Tillerson’s efforts to talk to North Korea “a waste of time,” and the White House recently rebuffed Tillerson’s suggestion that the U.S. is open to discussions without preconditions. However, Tillerson insisted Tuesday that the White House supports diplomatic talks.

“We can’t talk unless North Korea is ready to talk,” Tillerson told reporters in Ottawa. “We’ve indicated that we’re waiting for them.”

Rumours about Tillerson’s job status loomed over Tuesday’s announcement. In late November, the New York Times reported the White House was planning to replace Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo, “perhaps within the next several weeks.”

Asked by a reporter Monday whether he would resign, Tillerson called the question “ridiculous.” The relationship between Tillerson and Trump turned frosty back in July when the secretary of state reportedly called his boss a “moron.”

'Risk of war'

“The situation on the Korean peninsula is extremely dangerous right now,” University of Ottawa professor and former senior adviser to Prime Minister Trudeau Roland Paris told VICE News over the phone Wednesday. “The risk of war is a lot higher than zero.”

Holding a diplomatic meeting in Vancouver with the major players is a good strategy, Paris said.

“To my mind, there is no viable military option against North Korea at this point that wouldn’t involve massive loss of human life, and the United States is very visibly keeping the military option on the table,” he explained.

“To the extent that the North Koreans can be induced through economic and diplomatic pressure to at least suspend further testing, then it would be a step in the right direction, because in the end there is only one feasible outcome here, which is a diplomatic one.”

It’s in Canada’s interest to encourage the U.S. to pursue serious diplomatic options “given that the military options are not really feasible.”

While it’s true Canada’s prime minister could open a backchannel through Cuba, Paris said, “I would expect the US would have a number of back channels with the North Korean regime already.”

As for Tillerson’s job status, Paris said no one really knows whether the secretary of state is speaking on the president’s behalf, but it makes sense to work with him as long as he’s in the job because he supports a diplomatic resolution.

When asked about the potential for North Korean cyber attacks, Freeland declined to say what the leaders had discussed but said Canada takes the threat seriously. Cyber attacks are seen as an important weapon in North Korea’s arsenal; the U.S. on Monday blamed accused North Korea of launching the WannaCry computer worm which affected more than 230,000 computers earlier this year, according to the Washington Post. The threat of a cyber attack is serious because it could provoke a military response, Paris said.