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2 North Korea hawks down but not
out By Donald Kirk
WASHINGTON - The US State Department has
clearly seized the initiative from Vice President
Richard Cheney and the neo-conservatives of the
National Security Council and the Pentagon in
forming policy on North Korea.
The rising
influence of the State Department - at a time when
the White House is severely weakened by pervasive
criticism of the war in Iraq and bitter
disagreement on what to do about Iran's nuclear
program - comes despite suppression of dissenting
or
even
skeptical views within the department during the
first six years of the Bush administration.
Although appointees of President George W
Bush remain in high positions and experienced
analysts on Korea have retreated to think-tanks
and academe, intensified diplomacy on North Korea
reflects the leeway now given the State Department
to formulate policy on Korea rather than just
having to yield to edicts from the White House.
The US chief envoy on North Korea,
Christopher Hill, appears to have staked his
credibility on Pyongyang's willingness to abide by
the terms of the agreement reached on February 13
in Beijing under which it agreed to shut down the
nuclear complex at Yongbyon within 60 days, while
four of the five other signatories to the deal
agreed to ship 50,000 tonnes of heavy oil within
that time frame to help meet immediate energy
needs.
The reversal of the hardline
position from the White House has given South
Korean leaders the go-ahead to promise shipments
of food and fertilizer, cut off after the North
tested a small nuclear device on October 9.
Hill returns to Beijing this week to press
for fulfillment of the agreement, while Mohamed
ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), is in Pyongyang talking
about sending in inspectors under terms of the
agreement. Former South Korean prime minister Lee
Hae-chan spent four days in Pyongyang recently,
giving rise to speculation about a possible summit
between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and South
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
The Blue
House says it's not so, but the fact is another
North-South summit - seven years after Roh's
predecessor Kim Dae-jung flew to Pyongyang for the
only other meeting between South and North Korean
leaders - might finally be what's needed to
bolster Roh's sagging popularity and image.
Despite all such efforts, though, US
officials hedge their bets on whether this
agreement has any chance of succeeding. Much
hinges on North Korea's willingness to tell all
about its nuclear program in a declaration that is
required under the terms of the agreement - and on
US willingness not to press too hard for
information North Korea is not likely to reveal.
Thus, in what might appear as a serious
concession to Pyongyang, Hill early this month met
in New York with his North Korean counterpart, Kim
Kye-gwan, to talk about seeing the uranium problem
from quite a different perspective.
Could
it be that North Korea simply happened to have
imported from Pakistan some of the components for
developing highly enriched uranium but had
actually done very little about using them? Hill
knew Kim well from previous meetings in Beijing
and then three days of one-on-one dialogue in
Berlin last month before returning to Beijing for
another round of six-party dialogue that resulted
in the agreement of February 13.
While
Hill was talking to Kim, John Negroponte, newly
appointed as US deputy secretary of state, seemed
to be taking a tougher line. Touching down in
Seoul, Negroponte said he had "no doubt that North
Korea has had a highly enriched uranium program".
Negroponte, who went to the State
Department after serving as Bush's first national
director of intelligence, coordinating the
activities of disparate agencies, expects North
Korea to "address"
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