March 11, 2021

Dear Network Members and Colleagues,

We would like to share with you APLN interim Executive Director Shata Shetty’s “Deterrence and Disarmament” commentary published in The Korea Times. Ms. Shetty discusses the concept of nuclear risk across the spectrum of deterrence and disarmament.

She argues that a fact-based humanitarian discourse is necessary in tackling nuclear risks and eliminate nuclear weapons and that more can be done to mitigate and build a shared understanding of risk between disarmament and deterrence advocates.

Hotline Between Two Koreas: Status, Limitations and Future Task

On 8 March, a new special report was published written by APLN Vice-Chair, Professor Chung-in Moon and Institute for North Korean Studies Research Fellow Seung-Chan Boo on the hotline between the DPRK and ROK.

The authors provide a historical overview of the inter-Korean hotline and assess its present status. They argue that the hotline is an important confidence-building measure and has played a key role in not only preventing accidental military clashes and unintended conflict escalation but in facilitating exchange and cooperation between the two Koreas. They recommend that:

• The issue of the hotline should be incorporated as an integral part of nuclear negotiations.
• Every effort must be made to restore broken communication lines between Seoul and Pyongyang.
• The DPRK’s communications infrastructure must be modernized and upgraded with the adoption of the CATALINK hotline considered.

The DPRK’s COVID-19 Outbreak and its Response

On 3 March, APLN co-published a special report by Professor Shin Young-jeon of the Hanyang University School of Medicine on the impacts of COVID-19 on DPRK. Professor Shin assesses the DPRK’s response to the pandemic and offers a range of policy recommendations for the two Koreas and the international community including, but not limited to, the following:

• Maintaining stable management of the COVID-19 epidemic by establishing more open and cooperative relationships with the international community;
• Strengthening the system in place for quarantine to resume international trade and tourism;
• Improving inter-Korean relations and expansion of exchanges; and
• Expanding transparency and accuracy of information related to COVID-19 and international exchange.

• APLN Commentary: South Korean Hypersonic Ambitions: The Implications of Hypersonic Weapons on the Korean Peninsula by Katherine Yoon
• APLN Policy Brief No. 73: Can Nuclear Confidence-Building Measures between India and Pakistan be Revived? by Marianne Hanson
• APLN Policy Brief No. 72: Mounting Nuclear Risks: Are We Sleepwalking into Dangerous Marshland? by Manpreet Sethi
• APLN Policy Brief No. 71: The Ban Treaty: Perspectives from Southeast Asia by Mely Caballero-Anthony
• APLN Policy Brief No. 59: Cooperation or Conflict? Walking the Tightrope of NPT and Ban Treaty Supporters by Angela Kane
• APLN- Korea Times Column: Coming Together to Save NPT Right Now by Tuya Nyamosor
• APLN Policy Brief No. 55: Non-NPT Nuclear-Armed States and the NPT: Closing the Gap by Sadia Tasleem