| |
N Korea:
Dr Evil's chance for redemption
By Tom Tobback
BEIJING - "North Korea has an opportunity to change its path. As some Americans
might put it, there is a chance for redemption," according to James Kelly, US
assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, speaking about
the forthcoming six-party talks this week aimed at defusing the North Korean
nuclear crisis.
The second round of talks opens here on Wednesday, involving North and South
Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. Expectations are low, but
after North Korea's balking and calling the first round a waste of time, just
the fact of the meeting is seen as significant. The stated positions of
Washington and Pyongyang are far apart and appear inflexible, so maybe just
sitting down is important.
One of the hoped-for results of this round is the formation of lower-level
working groups, but these could hardly be called progress if the major parties
fail to move any closer on the core issues. The US wants eradication of North
Korea's nuclear-weapons programs; North Korea wants the lifting of sanctions,
economic assistance, and US security guarantees that Washington won't attack.
The administration of US President George W Bush obviously sees the upcoming
talks as the last way out for Pyongyang's "Dr Evil" - the nickname for North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il, head of what Bush calls part of the "axis of evil",
along with Iraq and Iran.
In the safe conservative company of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and
the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo in Washington, Kelly stated the US view
of Korean history: "While the Republic of Korea has, in recent decades,
developed into a leading member of the international community, the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea [DPRK] took a historic wrong turn from the very
start of its existence."
Kelly referred to Bush's anti-nuclear-proliferation speech of February 11:
"Abandoning the pursuit of illegal weapons can lead to better relations with
the United States and other free nations. Continuing to seek those weapons will
not bring security or international prestige, but only political isolation,
economic hardship and other unwelcome consequences."
Pyongyang - isolated, hungry, declining
No wonder the DPRK, already politically isolated and scraping the bottom of the
barrel for sustenance after years of famine and economic decline, has a clear
idea of what those "unwelcome consequences" could mean. United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1441 of November 2002 warned of "grave consequences" if Iraq
would not comply with inspections to uncover weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The Bush administration keeps up the tradition of not being willing to
recognize what Professor Gavan McCormack of the Australian National University
calls "the core of legitimacy in Pyongyang's cry for settlement": its bitter
legacy of Japanese colonialism, and the continuing nuclear intimidation,
economic embargo and diplomatic isolation by the US.
The basic mechanism of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT), recently highlighted again by Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, was that non-nuclear countries would agree
not to seek nuclear weapons in exchange for nuclear disarmament by the states
possessing nuclear weapons. On February 12, ElBaradei called not only for
stronger action against nuclear proliferation, but also for "accelerated
efforts towards nuclear disarmament".
As much as Washington is urging Kim Jong-il to grab this "chance for
redemption", Pyongyang also is demanding that a U-turn be taken by the
Bush administration. Ambassador Li Gun, a member of the DPRK negotiating
delegation, said: "Unless the US changes its hostile policy toward North Korea,
we absolutely cannot give up nuclear weapons."
This comment illustrates that the two positions are so far apart that
substantial progress at the upcoming talks is unlikely. Washington has said it
wants to examine the DPRK proposal of a re-freeze of its plutonium-based
facilities in Yongbyon, but admits that the US goal is nothing less than CVID -
the new buzz-word of the Bush administration - Complete (read: including the
alleged uranium-enrichment program), Verifiable (read: intrusive inspections
after a Libya-style admission of weapons programs and "surrender"),
Irreversible (read: a freeze is not enough) and Dismantlement (read:
dismantlement of the DPRK nuclear programs).
A second basic principle cited by Kelly to resolve the crisis is the
multilateral framework the US has been insisting on from the start, including
South Korea, Japan, Russia and China in the negotiations. Not that Washington
appears to seek a genuine diversity of views that might differ from its own. On
Sunday Kelly arrived in Seoul to coordinate the US, South Korean and Japanese
strategies for the six-way talks.
DPRK claims Chinese support for its plan
On the other side, Pyongyang claims the support of its host country, China.
DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan met Chinese officials in Beijing two
weeks ago and announced that China had agreed "to take joint actions to make
substantial progress in the next round of the six-way talks". Pyongyang also
stated that Beijing "admitted the reasonability of the package proposal of
simultaneous actions for the solution of the nuclear issue and the
DPRK-proposed 'reward in return for freeze'".
China reportedly has urged the US not to focus on the uranium-enrichment
question, which entered the spotlight after the revelations by Pakistan's top
nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, that he passed nuclear technology to
North Korea in the 1990s. Kelly said, "The recent confession of Pakistan's [
Abdul Qadeer] Khan suggests that, if anything, the North Korean HEU
[highly enriched uranium] program is of longer duration and more advanced than
we had assessed." He added that North Korea is "aggressively pursuing an
enriched-uranium nuclear arms program".
Pyongyang, in an official statement on February 10, called the US accusations
"mean and groundless propaganda", arguing that the US is "setting afloat such
unverifiable fiction about the DPRK's 'enriched uranium program' in order to
scour the interior of the DPRK on the basis of a legitimate mandate and attack
it just as what it did in Iraq". The rhetoric alone illustrates how difficult
it will be to design an acceptable inspection mechanism.
Last week a South Korean official, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed
that the DPRK recently told a third country it was willing to consult on the
issue of its alleged uranium enrichment program with the US. However, the
Chinese Foreign Ministry - closer to North Korea than any other country, and
host of the talks - said that it could not confirm this information.
Reacting to a suggestion by John Lewis, leader of the recent private US
delegation to Pyongyang, that there could have been a mistranslation, Kelly
said it was very clear to all members of his team that his DPRK counterpart,
First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju, acknowledged the existence of a highly
enriched uranium program back in October 2002.
The uranium issue seems to guarantee a deadlock, as neither side can afford to
go back on its previous statements. Hence China's suggestion - just to leave it
off the table.
South Korean official predicts 'positive' outcome
Chinese and South Korean officials, in their sensitive role of mediators, are
trying to put a positive spin on the developments. Chinese Vice Foreign
Minister Wang Yi visited Seoul and said the talks will have "substantial
content" and will hopefully result in tangible steps to defuse the crisis.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon stated that considerable progress has
already been made and said he expects a "visible and positive outcome".
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun did his part by announcing that he would
invite Kim Jong-il to visit Seoul after significant progress was made in the
six-party talks. He did not mention that Kim Jong-il still has a standing
invitation from Kim Dae-jung, Roh's predecessor, who visited Kim in Pyongyang
in 2000.
Japan had bilateral contacts with the DPRK earlier this month to discuss the
issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s, but
Pyongyang has threatened it will oppose Japan's participation in the six-party
talks if it wants to put the abduction issue on the agenda. The Japanese
parliament's recent decision to enable unilateral economic sanctions against
the DPRK has further soured their relationship.
Analysts have argued that the Agreed Framework of 1994, which solved a similar
nuclear crisis between the US and the DPRK, was never taken seriously by
Washington because the US expected the DPRK to collapse soon after the sudden
death of Kim Il-sung, the father of current leader, Kim Jong-il.
With a re-freeze of its plutonium-based nuclear facilities, the DPRK is seeking
to return to the conditions similar to those under the Agreed Framework, which
also included agreement on eventual full dismantlement. Kelly says that this
time the US wants a "fundamental and permanent solution" for North Korea and
that he does not expect to resolve the nuclear problem in a matter of a few
weeks or even a few months.
Tom Tobback is the creator and editor of
Pyongyang Square, a website dedicated to providing independent
information on North Korea. He is based in Beijing.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
content@atimes.com for information on our
sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
