PYONGYANG WATCH Six-party glacier: Did the
US melt?
Another round of
six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue has
come and gone. Last week, for the third time in a year,
the two Koreas plus their four mighty neighbors and/or
allies - China, the United States, Japan, and Russia -
gathered in Beijing around that big hexagonal table for
the best part of a week, interspersed with various
tete-a-tetes a deux.
To what
end? Was there a breakthrough? Don't be silly. In the
looking-glass world of dialogue with Pyongyang, success
is
redefined to mean that the comrades showed up - and
didn't walk out. You couldn't really set the bar any
lower. (Limbo dancing, maybe?)
As was the case
last time, there wasn't even an agreed final communique.
In February, North Korea torpedoed this, by demanding
last-minute changes. This time, reportedly, it was the
US that insisted that too little of substance had been
agreed to justify a joint statement.
So it was
left to China to issue a chairman's statement. Exciting
stuff, this. Paragraph #1: We all met. Para #2: Our
names. #3: A working group met too. #4: We had
"constructive, pragmatic and substantive discussions".
#5: We agreed we need to proceed step by step. #6: There
were lots of proposals. Some agreed, some didn't. #7:
We'll meet again, with any luck, by September. #8:
Everyone thanked China for arranging it. (Lest you think
I mock, check it out at
www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t140647.htm)
This they
call progress? Japan's chief delegate, Mitoji Yabunaka,
tried to put a positive spin on the talks, as reported
in an Associated Press wire report: "The problems start
from here. This is the first step, at the entrance. From
now starts the work on concrete measures."
Excuse me? The first step? That was the third
round of talks, already: so what do you call rounds one
and two? This all began last August. Not to mention all
the earlier history: the first North Korean nuclear
crisis a decade ago, the 1994 Agreed Framework, and so
on.
So after three rounds of talks, spread over
almost a year, they're still only at the entrance. Could
it be that somebody, just maybe, doesn't actually want
to go through that door?
Well, yes, frankly. And
it isn't, or wasn't, only Kim Jong-il. When the US
insisted on a multilateral framework for any future
talks with Pyongyang, it expected this to line up as
five against one. North Korea would be its usual
belligerent, intransigent self; so even China and Russia
would join the US and its allies in trying to bring the
miscreant to heel.
That isn't quite how it has
transpired. On the contrary: if there's a five against
one, it's the US which has sometimes seemed the odd man
out. Intoning its mantra of CVID - complete, verifiable,
irreversible dismantling of nuclear facilities - offered
North Korea nothing (that would be a surrender to
blackmail, they claimed) while demanding a commitment to
total nuclear disarmament up front. Did they seriously
imagine Kim Jong-il would just roll over, waggle his
tail, and let nice Uncle Sam tickle his bare unprotected
underbelly?
Of course they didn't. As a final
goal, CVID is essential. But to make it also a first
hurdle was a cynical ploy by hawks in Washington, mainly
in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, and the
Pentagon, who simply don't believe in deals with Kim
Jong-il, period.
So they kept Assistant
Secretary of State Jim Kelly and his team on a tight
leash, with no wiggle room to explore even hypothetical
give and take. Woe betide anyone who strays from the
script. At earlier six-party working talks in May, the
new State Department point man on North Korea, Joseph
DeTrani, apparently tried to break the deadlock.
Who can blame him? Isn't that what diplomats and
negotiators are for? It seems he spoke of a possible
deal involving a nuclear reactor: perhaps a revival, in
some form, of the two light water reactors that were
being built until this crisis by the US-led Korean
Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a
project now widely thought to be defunct.
How do
we know this? Because some slimy hawk on his team
shopped him. On May 19 the Washington Times had a
headline: "USA Considers Reactor Deal With North Korea."
The Times' Bill Gertz, a veteran leak-taker and trusty
attack-dog, quoted a "US official familiar with the
talks" - anonymous, as always - as saying: "it appeared
Mr DeTrani went beyond the very limited [sic] talking
points, prepared during US interagency discussions, that
prevent him from discussing concessions such as the
reactor." Honestly: whether you're a hawk or a dove, are
leashes plus leaks any way to run a government?
Yet a month is a long time in Washington. The
hawks won that battle; but last week, for a change, they
lost the war for Dubya's ear. This round of six-party
talks at least started out promisingly. For the first
time the US tabled a concrete plan, complete with
incentives.
This we learned, need I add, via a
further leak: to a second favored outlet, The New York
Times' David Sanger. (The receptacle role has its risks.
Another recent Sanger scoop, alleging that North Korea
sold uranium to Libya, has been widely criticized for
being based on "intelligence" sources which appear to be
both tendentious and inaccurate.)
But this story
was kosher. On June 23, the day full-dress talks began,
Sanger broke his exclusive. As reported in outline - the
text runs to seven pages - the new US plan gives North
Korea three months to list and freeze all its nuclear
facilities, remove key weapons components, and accept
inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA).
So far, so peremptory. But in return,
the US would start talks on lifting sanctions, give a
provisional guarantee not to attack, and let other
countries supply much-needed oil. It's a fairly brisk
step-by-step approach, partly based - they wish - on the
Libyan precedent.
One-up for the pro-engagers at
State. They'd planned this in total secrecy, as needs
must (remember DeTrani). As it happens, I was in
Washington for the second week of June: picking up all
manner of gossip, but nary a whisper of this. No leaks
till the deed is done.
Consternation among the
hawks. How to prevent an outbreak of - shock, horror -
serious dialogue, perhaps even progress? If you forgot
the story already, I'll tell you tomorrow ...
Tomorrow: Bush's U-turn: Too little, too
late?
Aidan Foster-Carter is
honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern
Korea, Leeds University, England.
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PYONGYANG WATCH
