Harris campaign says denuclearizing North Korea remains priority, despite platform omission

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign said Tuesday that denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula will remain a key objective for the United States if the Democratic ticket wins in November.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appear at the Fiserv Forum during a campaign rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday. [AP/YONHAP]

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign said Tuesday that denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula will remain a key objective for the United States if the Democratic ticket wins in November.

This comes amid concerns over the omission of North Korea's denuclearization from the Democratic Party's newly adopted platform.

"Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remains an objective of this [Biden] administration and, I would have to imagine, a Harris-Walz administration," said Colin Kahl, a former undersecretary of defense for policy and a key figure in drafting the platform, during a press briefing Tuesday at the Foreign Press Center in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention is currently underway.

Kahl suggested that people were "overreading" the platform's lack of explicit references to denuclearization.

The Democratic National Committee finalized the 92-page 2024 party platform on Monday.

Notably, the platform does not include the 2020 pledge to "build a sustained, coordinated diplomatic campaign to advance the longer-term goal of denuclearization." Instead, it focuses on efforts to strengthen cooperation with allies in responding to North Korea.

This marks a departure from the 2016 and 2020 platforms, which explicitly stated the goal of achieving "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) on the Korean Peninsula." References to North Korean human rights issues, which were included in previous platforms, have also been omitted.

The Republican Party's platform, released last month, similarly made no mention of the Korean Peninsula or North Korea. This has led to concerns that denuclearization could become less of a priority under the next U.S. administration.

"I don't think that experts who look at the Korean Peninsula see an imminent prospect of denuclearization," the former Pentagon official said. "So the near-term priority has to be to make sure that we're defending our alliance commitments as it relates to South Korea, but also to close allies like Japan ... [and] also strengthening our deterrence." He pointed to the Biden administration's success in enhancing trilateral cooperation among the United States, South Korea and Japan as a key achievement. Kahl also warned of potential risks if former President Donald Trump were to win the 2024 election, saying that Trump's approach to alliances as transactional relationships could undermine Washington's extended deterrence commitments and send a dangerous signal to adversaries.

Following the Democratic Party's new policy platform, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed the international community's commitment to denuclearizing Pyongyang.

"The international community's commitment to the denuclearization of North Korea, including that of South Korea and the United States, is firm," ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said during a regular press briefing in Seoul on Tuesday. "Regardless of the election outcome, we will continue to maintain close communication and cooperation with the United States regarding policies toward North Korea and its nuclear issues."

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]