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2 Korea nuke talks: Optimism is in
the air By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - Nobody wants to appear overly
upbeat about the six-party talks going on in
Beijing on North Korea's nukes. Still, the
impression shared by many observers, as the talks
resumed on Thursday, was that this time may be
different from the others, including the last
round in December that failed to go beyond the
usual rhetoric before ending to universal
expressions of "disappointment".
"It's
clear there's a real note of optimism in the air,"
said Edward
Reed, Korea representative of
the Asia Foundation. "That has not preceded
previous sessions. It leads one to think something
has been agreed to."
Indeed, the chief US
and South Korean envoys to the talks both hinted
that the current round may result in a preliminary
agreement - the first substantive step in a long
process that should end, ideally, with North Korea
abandoning its nuclear-weapons program in exchange
for vast amounts of economic and energy aid.
Christopher Hill, the US envoy, stopping
off first in Seoul and then in Tokyo on his way to
Beijing, let it be known that he and his North
Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, had actually
reached an agreement in one-on-one talks last
month in Berlin. After getting to Beijing he
denied that he had signed anything, but the
implication was clear: those bilateral meetings,
which he characterized as "discussions", should be
seen as setting the stage for the six-party
"negotiations" hosted by China.
As the
talks opened, the question remained whether Kim
would offer - and accept - the terms set forth in
Berlin. If all goes well, said Hill, the two sides
may agree on "the first tranche" - an exchange of
"give and take" in a "step-by-step" process that
should lead to a "second and a third tranche".
Kim, arriving in Beijing, said he was indeed ready
to discuss "first-stage measures" but all depended
on "whether the United States will give up its
hostile policy" in favor of "peaceful
co-existence" - a circumlocution that gave rise to
as much doubt as hope.
North Korean
acquiescence, in fact, hinges on long-sought US
concessions, according to two Americans who talked
to Kim Kye-gwan in Pyongyang in the run-up to the
six-party talks. David Albright, head of the
Institute for Science and International Security,
and Joel Wit, a former State Department official
who has focused for years on the nuclear issue,
told reporters that North Korea would insist both
on an end to financial sanctions imposed by the US
Treasury Department and agreement right away on
the supply of oil or electricity to help meet its
energy needs. Those were just the most immediate
of a number of issues that might form the crux of
negotiations - this week and later.
Some
observers, though, were troubled by the role
assumed by Albright and Wit as message-bearers.
Ralph Cossa, of the Honolulu office of the Pacific
Forum of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, based in Washington,
observed that attempt to use Americans "to
pre-negotiate" is "a familiar tactic" but seemed
surprised that Albright and Wit should have played
along. Their visit would be understandable "if
talks had been in a prolonged stalemate period",
said Cossa, but to report on North Korea's demands
"a day or two before sensitive negotiations" was
"the height of irresponsibility". North Korea's
demands, he said, were "not new" - though "seldom
so conveniently packaged right before formal
negotiations are to resume".
Moreover,
Cossa observed, North Korea has ignored the whole
issue of its program to produce highly enriched
uranium, the reason for the breakdown in late 2002
of the 1994 Geneva agreement on the nuclear issue.
Without acknowledgement by Pyongyang of its
"clandestine enrichment program", said Cossa,
"prospects for any real progress are slim".
In fact, there may not be any progress at
all if the Americans hold fast against North
Korea's insistence on an end to the order barring
any financial institution from doing business in
the US, or with a US firm, from dealing with Banco
Delta Asia in Macau, through which North Korea
purportedly channeled counterfeit US$100 bills
printed on a Swiss-made press in Pyongyang. Macau
authorities promptly froze $24 million in North
Korean assets in Banco Delta Asia, while North
Korea made the ban the reason for refusing to
return to talks for more than a year until last
December.
One face-saving way out of the
impasse, said Ryoo Gil-jae, professor at the
University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, may
be for North Korea to admit that "some people
acted illegally but are not related to North
Korean authorities" - and to promise "no
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