Putrajaya can give in to North Korea’s demands, compromise and negotiate a deal, or carry out a secret operation to sneak out the four diplomats and their family members at the Malaysian embassy in North Korea.
The report says the nine, who are safe for the moment, are pawns in the diplomatic fight following the murder of Kim Jong Nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, on Feb 13.
In retaliation, Malaysia is not allowing North Koreans here to leave.
The CNN report quoted Ming Wan, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University in Virginia, US, as saying: “Right now there are no good options. They (the Malaysians) are stuck.”
The report quoted Yang Razali, a Malaysian politics expert at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, as saying: “There has never been a case of Malaysian diplomats being trapped in a tit-for-tat with another country.”
The best of the three options is to compromise, according to the report.
Prime Minister Najib Razak had said he was willing to negotiate and that Putrajaya would not sever diplomatic ties with North Korea.
But Malaysian officials are not sure what exactly North Korea is now demanding, according to Najib.
Initially, Pyongyang demanded Jong Nam’s body back, but police refused, saying they would only hand the body to the next-of-kin.
CNN said by keeping the Malaysians from leaving, North Korea had strengthened its hand.
While Malaysia respected human rights, North Korea did not. Also, while Malaysia’s actions could be predicted as it would be based on international standards and approaches, North Korea is totally unpredictable.
The report said the only factor in Malaysia’s favour was that North Korea would not want three of its nationals, believed to be holed up at its embassy in Kuala Lumpur, to be questioned by police over Jong Nam’s murder.
This is because they may have access to sensitive or compromising information that Pyongyang doesn’t want to get out.
The second option was for Malaysia to give in to Pyongyang’s demands, but this was not likely, said the CNN report.
The report said this was because recent comments by Najib regarding the North Koreans “doesn’t sound like a man willing to give up”.
CNN also hinted that domestic politics might be at play, as the 14th general election is looming. It quoted Yang Razali as saying that Najib could not afford to look weak.
The third, and least likely, option is to carry out an operation like that in the movie “Argo”. The movie is about the real-life story of a CIA agent who staged a fake movie to smuggle Americans out of Iran during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979.
It quoted CNN national security analyst Steve Hall as saying it would be very tough as the Malaysians would have to try to “sneak inside what is essentially a police state” that’s closed off to the rest of the world.
Hall, a former CIA chief of Russia operations, said: “I don’t know that any intelligence professional could actually recommend it as a reasonable way to go forward.”
He said the North Koreans probably had a better shot at getting their people out in such an operation as they were much less predictable than the Malaysians.
With Pyongyang, “you can’t really rule anything out,” said Hall. “It’s just so unpredictable, it’s hard to know what the North Koreans are going to do.”
Although China, Pyongyang’s most important partner, could help push the country to negotiate, Beijing does not wield as much influence over Kim Jong Un as it did over his father and grandfather, according to the report.
“I don’t see anybody being able to pressure them. I think we’re going to have to watch this for a while,” CNN quoted US academic Wan as saying.