North Korea agrees to give up
nukes By Gerard Young
It's been almost three years since a
crisis erupted over North Korea's nuclear
ambitions but Monday Pyongyang finally agreed to
give up its nuclear weapons programs and return to
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The
question now is whether North Korean leader Kim
Jong-Il is serious or stalling for time. North
Korea can be unpredictable at best, while at worst
it is known for breaking commitments.
"All
six parties emphasized that to realize the
inspectable non-nuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula is the target of the six-party talks," a
joint statement said. "The Democratic People's
Republic of Korea promised to drop all nuclear
weapons and current nuclear programs and to get
back to the nonproliferation
treaty as soon as
possible and to accept inspections from the
International Atomic Energy Agency.''
It
was the first time in four rounds of six-party
talks that participants have come close to coming
up with a joint statement. The statement issued in
Beijing, home to all four rounds of the talks,
also includes provision that the United States,
Russia, South Korea, Japan and China have agreed
to provide energy assistance to North Korea.
The parties say they are also committed to
negotiating a new agreement for lasting peace and
stability on the Korean Peninsula. The six
countries plan more talks in November to discuss
concrete steps to implement the statement.
One sticking point - or at least a
negotiating tactic employed by the North Koreans -
has been Pyongyang's contention that South Korea -
in conjunction with its ally, the US - also
contains nuclear weapons. The joint statement also
included an affirmation by the United States that
it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula
and no intention to invade or attack North Korea.
The talks, which began in late August
2003, were essentially a cat-and-mouse game
between the United States and North Korea, with
other countries complicating negotiations by
trying to put their own issues on the table. For
instance, Japan was concerned about the issue of
its citizens being abducted to North Korea in the
1970s. Japan and North Korea issued a second
statement Monday, saying they would move to
normalize relations regarding "the outstanding
issues of concern", thought to be the abduction
issue.
But on Monday, which marked the
20th day over two sessions of the fourth round of
six-party talks, the focus was largely on the new
relationship the US and North Korea will forge if
the two nations use the joint statement as a
launching pad for a new treaty or pact.
The statement said North Korea and the
United States have agreed to respect each other's
sovereignty and to gradually normalize their
relations. The North has longed complained that it
feared the US would simply walk into the country
if it was unable to maintain the protection a
nuclear program affords.
One surprise in
the statement was the two countries' agreement to
normalize relations. President George W Bush has
previously stated that North Korea is part of "an
axis of evil" that included Saddam Hussein's Iraq
and Iran.
North Korea claimed it had to
the right to develop a peaceful nuclear power
program in future, the statement said. The five
nations agreed to respect this demand and will
discuss providing light-water reactors to
Pyongyang "at an appropriate time", the agreement
said.
When asked to define what an
appropriate time would be to discuss the issue of
light-water reactors, chief US negotiator
Christopher Hill told a news conference after the
joint statement was finalized that the timing
would be "when North gets rid of its nuclear
weapons and all of its existing programs and [has]
gotten back into the NPT with good standing with
IAEA safeguards".
He added that he expects
the North to move "promptly", with halting
operations at the Yongbyon reactor "now". North
Korea did not immediately comment on the joint
statement or its thoughts on the next set of
meetings.
The statement says the agreement
will be implemented "in a phased manner in line
with the principle of 'commitment for commitment,
action for action'".
One good sign during
the fourth round was the amount of time Hill spent
with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan.
The two conducted several side meetings, something
not seen between negotiators of the US and North
Korea in the previous three rounds.
The
Chinese were no doubt were thrilled with the
outcome. "This is the most important result since
the six-party talks started more than two years
ago," said Wu Dawei, China's vice foreign
minister.
As recently as the weekend,
observers were predicting the fourth round of
six-party talks would end the same way as the
previous three, without any deal and at best a
weak joint statement. The standoff revolved around
North Korea not wanting to disarm completely
without major concessions. Washington had insisted
the weapons programs be completely dropped before
it rewarded North Korea.
The deal comes in
wake of a statement by the World Food Program,
which has said North Korea is headed toward the
worst humanitarian food crisis since the mid-1990s
when an estimated 1 million North Koreans died.
WFP now predicts 6.5 million North Koreans
desperately need food aid.
While there was
cause for some celebration when the six-party
statement was made public, observers say the
follow-up talks in November could prove difficult.
Details have always been a stumbling block when it
comes to negotiations with North Korea. Kim
Jong-il has a tendency to up the ante, depending
on the situation, though North Korea's desire to
get out of the world's doghouse in light of its
impending food shortage should be incentive for
the isolated state to build the joint statement
into a more concrete pact.
Hill seemed to
be thinking the same way: "It's a good agreement
for all of us. We have to see what comes in the
days and weeks ahead. We have to seize the
momentum of this."
Masao Okonogi, Korea
specialist at Tokyo's Keio University, told
Reuters, "When you think what might have happened
if the talks had fallen apart, they have avoided a
very serious situation." But he added, "The
statement consists only of targets and principles.
It is only the first half of the battle.
Implementation will mean they have to go through
another set of equally tough negotiations."
Lee Dong-bok, Seoul-based senior associate
at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, told Reuters that, "The
agreement allows participants in the talks to
interpret it as they like, yet no issue has been
resolved. The discussion on the light-water
reactor issue has been simply delayed and we don't
know when that will be. The issue may emerge again
when they begin discussing details."
The nuclear crisis, which had been
simmering for a dozen years, erupted in October
2002 when US Assistant Secretary of State James
Kelly visited Pyongyang, charging then that the
North was continuing to pursue a nuclear weapons
program. He claimed there was evidence of a secret
uranium-enrichment program, carried out in
defiance of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under that
agreement, North Korea had promised to give up
nuclear plans in return for the construction of
two light water nuclear power reactors and oil
shipments from the US.
Relations continued
to deteriorate between the US and North Korea. At
the beginning of 2003, South Korea asked China to
use its influence with the North to help reduce
the building tension. Just over a week later the
North announced it was withdrawing from the NPT.
International nuclear inspectors were also booted
from the country.
After much tooing and froing
and many threats of military intervention the
sides agreed to sit down for what came to be known
as the six-party talks. In February, the North
claimed it had nuclear weapons. It is believed to
have enough radioactive material for about a
half-dozen bombs from its publicly acknowledged
plutonium program, but it hasn't performed any
known nuclear tests to prove its capability.
Gerard Young is an
Asia Times Online correspondent based in
Thailand.
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