▲ This photo, taken on April 10, 2024, shows Mira Rapp-Hooper, the U.S. National Security Council senior director for East Asia and Oceania, speaking during a press briefing at the Foreign Press Center in Washington. (Yonhap)

US official-N Korea

U.S. official singles outs deepening N.K.-Russia ties as what she would have 'go differently'

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- A White House official in charge of East Asia policy on Friday picked a growing military partnership between Russia and North Korea as a security policy challenge that she would have "go differently," as she took stock of the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific policy records.

Mira Rapp-Hooper, the National Security Council senior director for East Asia and Oceania, made the remarks during a forum, noting that the partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang is one of the issues that "really does keep me up at night."

"Certainly, if I had to pick one thing that's on my docket now, the DPRK-Russia relationship would probably be the thing that I would have go differently," she said during a fireside chat organized by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"But part of the reason this is a challenging question is because as someone who's been very close to the policy, it's also very hard to locate a point where we could have changed this trajectory," she added.

Rapp-Hooper reiterated that Washington has made repeated overtures to reengage with Pyongyang, but to no avail.

"For the first many years and up until today of this administration, the Biden team has reached out to North Korea on numerous occasions through every possible channel, and demonstrated a willingness to engage on a wide variety of topics and without preconditions," she said.

"One of the most challenging aspects ... has been North Korea in an environment where Pyongyang was absolutely determined not to come to the table."

But there were many "silver linings" that emerged in the midst of threats from the North and its cooperation with Russia.

"Needless to say, the challenge posed by Pyongyang and by Pyongyang and Moscow together has catalyzed further really incredible trilateral cooperation between the ROK and Japan that we could not have imagined a few years ago," she said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

"It has made our European friends really stand up to the challenge that Indo-Pacific threats can pose to Europe directly and that, in turn, has forced further integration between our Euro-Atlantic allies and our Indo-Pacific allies."

Asked about the "biggest challenge" in her time in government, she pinpointed North Korea as one of the tough challenges.

"The DPRK again ... is a really tough challenge that we've been working on for so many successive administrations and it feels like it's just incredibly difficult to get one's arms around," she said. "That's certainly been true in my experience."

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