Will the Trump Administration Address the GCC-North Korea Nexus?

This article was co-authored by Dr. Theodore Karasik (@TKarasik).

The New Atlanticist originally published this post on August 1, 2017.

Several recent articles on North Koreas relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have drawn this Northeast Asian country into an ongoing crisis within the bloc. From Washingtons perspective, GCC-North Korea relations threaten to undermine US efforts to isolate Pyongyang and squeeze it economically in response to its belligerent behavior marked by the recent testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles .

Pyongyangs interest in the Arabian Peninsula states dates back to the Cold War. Despite Washingtons efforts to isolate North Korea, the Hermit Kingdoms ties with GCC member states have only deepened over the past twenty years.

In May 1992, Oman became the first GCC member to establish diplomatic ties with North Korea, formally known as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). Until that point, the North Korean regime had poor relations with the pro-Western conservative sheikdoms of the Arabian Peninsula. From the 1950s until the Soviet Unions implosion in 1991, Pyongyang had a highly ideological foreign policy in the Arab world, partnering with and supporting the socialist/Marxist republics of Algeria , Egypt , Libya , Syria , and South Yemen . In fact, the DPRK worked with other communist powers and Arab nationalist states to sponsor the Dhofar rebels who fought to overthrow Omans Al Said rulers and install a second Marxist regime in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

By the 1990s, Pyongyang began reaching out to the GCC as a result of the Soviet Unions collapse, the cooling of DPRK-China relations, the famine of 1995-1998, and growing isolation as a result of pressure from the international community. Determined to establish trade partnerships with any willing country, North Korea established diplomatic relations with Qatar in 1993, Kuwait and Bahrain in 2001, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2007; Saudi Arabia is the only GCC member that maintains no officials ties with North Korea. Today these Arab sheikdoms and the Hermit Kingdom have intricate and perplexing relations.

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