WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US Congress moves to impose more economic sanctions on North Korea to halt its nuclear program are bound to fail, Former US Ambassador and co-chair of the United States China Policy Foundation Chas Freeman told Sputnik.
"Sanctions haven't worked in North Korea for the past 65 years. Why should they start working now?" Freeman, a leading US expert on Northeast Asia, said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea following its January 6 nuclear test.
"This is a congressional tantrum, not a policy, still less a strategy," he said.
The veteran envoy said sanctions could offer useful leverage when applied as part of an integrated diplomatic strategy to engage a nation, but that they never worked as purely punitive measures.
"In the case of Iran, sanctions were part of a diplomatic bargaining process. That is not the case with North Korea," Freeman pointed out.
The tough, United Nations-approved sanctions regime already in place had failed to prevent Pyongyang from pursuing its nuclear program, and there was no indication that trying to make the international embargos even tougher would be any better, Freeman argued.
"How effective could the new sanctions be regarding the fact that the previous sanctions did not prevent North Korea from [carrying out the January 6] test?" he asked.
Ambassador Freeman served as US Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’affaires at the US embassies in Beijing and Bangkok. He was the State Department's Director for Chinese Affairs and also held several senior level positions at the US Department of Defense.
