South Korea, the U.S. and China should initiate a mechanism to head off a possible handover of North Korean nuclear weapons to terrorist groups and boost substantive top-level talks to better prepare for the future of the peninsula, a U.S. scholar said Thursday.



Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who leads its project on security and terrorism, singled out “loose nukes” as the “first and foremost” crisis that may break out following a sudden collapse of the Kim Jong-un regime, referring to poorly guarded atomic devices, fissile materials or related know-how feared to fall into the wrong hands.



The term was initially coined after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 prompted concerns that its stockpile of thousands of nuclear warheads and uranium and plutonium may tempt terrorists, criminals or other illicit organizations, though its successor managed to block their sale.



“But if there’s any North Korean regime collapse, then the individuals who might get possession of those nuclear weapons or nuclear material would have far less reason not to sell them, not to use them for very short-term purposes,” Pape said in an interview with The Korea Herald on the sidelines of the Seoul Defense Dialogue hosted by the Defense Ministry here.



“In a general anarchy against all, it’s much more uncertain and much more dangerous what will happen to the nuclear materials and any nuclear weapons that were fashioned.”





Robert Pape, a professor and director of the University of Chicago’s project on security and terrorism. (Defense Ministry)