U.S. President Barack Obama’s nominee for assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs has vowed to actively pursue a verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula if he's approved for the post.
 
Daniel Russel made the pledge on Thursday during his confirmation hearing at the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.
              
Last month, Obama nominated Russel, who is currently the National Security Council (NSC) Director for Asian Affairs, to succeed Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell.
 
Russel said that the North presents, through its nuclear and missile programs, a serious threat to the U.S., to its allies and to global nonproliferation efforts.
 
He said that if his nomination is confirmed, he will actively seek the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and work to block North Korea's efforts to proliferate and to blackmail its neighbors.
 
He also said that President Park Geun-hye’s proposal for process on building trust among Asian countries is related to the Helsinki Process, which was the process by which the West negotiated with the Eastern Bloc. He said that President Park's vision is ""worth looking into and thinking about quite carefully."