|
|
|
|
Pyongyang ups the ante -
again
By Bruce Klingner
Although North Korea's admission that it
possesses nuclear weapons is consistent with
previous statements made during the past 18
months, the perception that Thursday's statement
marks Pyongyang's first "official" admission will
have dynamic and conflicting impacts on the
six-way talks aimed at ending the country's
nuclear program. The possible resultant frenzy
might force North Korea's neighbors and the United
States to respond more directly to the nuclear
issue, much as the 1998 nuclear tests by India and
Pakistan induced government action despite
long-standing international knowledge that the two
nations possessed nuclear weapons.
North
Korea's statement was surprising in its timing,
though not in its content. Pyongyang had adopted a
passive "wait and see" strategy toward Washington,
first awaiting the results of the presidential
election, then waiting for indications that a
second-term administration of President George W
Bush would abandon its "hostile" policy toward the
regime. North Korea stipulated that its
participation in follow-on six-way talks was
predicated on a more flexible US approach.
Rumors of the makeup of the new US
national-security team were parsed for indications
of US policy direction. Although Pyongyang
remained largely mute, the appointment of
Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state was seen by
some as maintaining a moderate voice at State
Department - a surprising interpretation given her
involvement in creating the National Security
Strategy and its controversial preemptive-attack
theory.
Rice's confirmation hearings and
her depiction of North Korea as an "outpost of
tyranny" raised the hackles of Pyongyang, which
reacts vociferously to any slander of its regime
or ruler. President Bush's sweeping inaugural
pledge to unseat dictators caused Asian
trepidation; nervous expectations were raised for
a detailed delineation of US policy toward North
Korea during his subsequent State of the Union
address.
The president, instead, limited
himself to only a passing mention of Pyongyang and
made no reference to stories of North Korean
shipments of uranium to Libya's nuclear-weapons
program. Bush's speech and its lack of criticism
of Pyongyang were interpreted in South Korea as a
signal to the North of a renewed US interest in
negotiations, an impression reinforced by a
bilateral pledge by Bush and South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun to push for an early
resumption of the nuclear talks.
Growing
optimism for an early resumption of the six-way
talks led to a resumption of shuttle diplomacy
among the participants in order to coordinate
policy on the allies' part and use South Korean
and Chinese interlocutors to pressure North Korea.
The White House said last week that it had
"indications" from Pyongyang that it wanted to
return to the negotiations. The participants in
the Beijing-hosted talks are North and South
Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Although expectations were that Pyongyang
would continue to await the delineation of US
policy, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may have
calculated that a provocative statement was
necessary to refocus global attention on the
Korean Peninsula and preempt Chinese pressure.
Incrementally declaring itself a
nuclear state
North Korea had previously
laid the groundwork for this week's announcement
by incrementally declaring itself a nuclear state
while, at the same time, retaining strategic
ambiguity, possibly in an attempt to minimize the
potential for Washington to respond forcefully.
North Korean officials had initially told
their US counterparts of the regime's nuclear
deterrent - on the sidelines of meetings, so that
the statements could be subsequently denied if
necessary. Pyongyang's ambassador to the United
Nations and vice foreign minister later told US
officials and reporters of the regime's nuclear
deterrent, and Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun told
visiting Congressman Curt Weldon last month that
"we are a nuclear state". In Weldon's upbeat
readout of his trip, he commented that Paek had
emphasized that North Korea did not wish to
preserve its nuclear weapons since
"denuclearization is our final goal ... we would
have full transparency". The congressman said it
appeared that North Korea wanted to resume
negotiations "within a few weeks".
This
week's Foreign Ministry statement indicated that
Pyongyang's patience had run its course and that
it had determined that the second-term Bush policy
was "not only to further its policy to isolate and
stifle the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of
Korea] ... but to escalate it" while pursuing
"regime change". As a result, Pyongyang announced
that it would "suspend our participation in the
talks for an indefinite period", until the
atmosphere had changed sufficiently to expect
positive results.
By holding out the
promise of returning to the talks rather than
issuing an outright rejection, the North Korean
statement reflects a negotiating tactic to garner
increased favors for its eventual participation.
Pyongyang has long demanded, and generally
received, concessions or rewards as an inducement
to return to the negotiating venue. By again
blaming the hostile policy of the United States,
North Korea is seeking to shift blame for the
current impasse to Bush's hardline policy, and
away from its own intransigence, and to divide the
other six-way-talks participants from the US.
Pyongyang has repeated its assertion that
it possesses a "nuclear weapons arsenal" for
defensive purposes, but some have questioned
whether the regime is bluffing, since its nuclear
claims can't be independently verified.
The Foreign Ministry statement will
concurrently affirm the beliefs of two
diametrically opposed camps - those who feel that
the growing North Korean threat underscores the
critical need to provide sufficient concessions to
induce Pyongyang's return to negotiations and
those who argue that no agreement can be reached
with such a regime until it abandons its
destabilizing behavior.
US wants China,
South Korea to increase pressure
Although
Secretary of State Rice played down the
significance of the North Korean statement, the
Bush administration will likely privately perceive
that its policy of firmness has been vindicated.
Washington may now feel it will have increased
leverage to induce Beijing and Seoul to increase
pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its dangerous
nuclear program.
One consequence of North
Korea's announcement is that it undermines its key
supporters in Seoul and Beijing. Advocates of
Seoul's engagement policy had repeatedly dismissed
US intelligence reports of North Korean
nuclear-weapons developments, citing the ambiguous
nature of the data, coupled with skepticism over
US veracity after the Iraqi WMD controversy
(Washington had said that Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction were a major reason for the US-led
invasion; none were found). Pyongyang's
unambiguous statement about having nuclear arms,
however, will more directly force South Korea and
China to confront that which they have long
ignored or denied. That said, one must never
underestimate Seoul's ability to ignore the facts
when they conflict with its policies.
South Korean domestic public-opinion polls
had increasingly blamed the US for causing the
nuclear crisis, leading President Roh to carve out
a more independent role as broker between
Pyongyang and Washington. Roh's pledge not to
tolerate a nuclear North Korea will be called into
question. He will now be faced with a decision on
whether to continue the South's economic largess
to the North, including participation in the
showcase Kaesong special economic zone and
responding to Pyongyang's latest request for
500,000 tons of fertilizer.
China, which
overcame its traditional reluctance to adopt a
more activist role in resolving the North Korean
nuclear question, must interpret Pyongyang's
statement as an insulting loss of face in its role
as host for the talks. North Korea's nuclear claim
stands in direct contradiction to Beijing's
oft-repeated identification of a non-nuclear
Korean Peninsula as one of China's strategic
national interests.
Congressman Weldon
interpreted the North Korean Foreign Ministry
statement as "posturing, perhaps right before they
agree to come in. They posture so they can get a
better bargaining position so that when they come
to the table they'll get more." He is very likely
correct, but if Pyongyang returns to the table, it
may find that is has driven the other five
participants more closely together.
Bruce Klingner is director of
analysis for Intellibridge Corp in Washington, DC.
His areas of expertise are strategic national
security, political and military affairs in China,
Northeast Asia, Korea and Japan. He can be reached
at bklingner@intellibridge.com.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette Korean Sex News
|
|
|
