SEOUL - North Korean rhetoricians have evidently been reading all those
analyses by Washington think-tankers and journalists of United States President
Barack Obama's "first 100 days" in office.
Where else would they have come up with the notion of their own 100-day review?
Yes, they've concocted a "study of the policy pursued by the Obama
administration for the past 100 days", and the verdict is not good.
As far as the North Koreans are concerned, the Obama presidency is about the
same as that of the reviled George W Bush when it comes to dialogue on the
familiar issues of nuclear
warheads and the missiles with which to fire them. Whatever happened to all
those expectations that Obama, the liberal reformer, would indulge the North's
fantasies of grandeur as a member of the world's elite "nuclear club?"
North Korea's oft-quoted and always anonymous "Foreign Ministry spokesman" had
a ready response. "Nothing would be expected," he was quoted as saying, since
the US "remains unchanged in its hostility toward its dialogue partner".
As the North Korean nuclear crisis, or mini-crisis, or non-crisis simmered on,
the sense was the classic "deja vu all over again", to quote that
philosopher/baseball player Yogi Berra. Just as North Korea was declaring its
determination to test another nuclear weapon, US special envoy Stephen Bosworth
was on the circuit from Beijing to Seoul to Tokyo, twisting arms to form a
common approach on how to get North Korea to return to six-party talks.
Only this time, Bosworth is talking about six-party talks minus one, that is
excluding North Korea, meaning it would be five-party talks. There was
something almost plaintive about his quest as he and sidekick Sung Kim, nuclear
envoy from the US State Department's Korea desk, tilted against the windmills
of diplomats first in Beijing, then Seoul and on to Tokyo.
What else could Bosworth say other than to reiterate, "very strongly", the US
line that "the solution", as always, "lies in dialogue and negotiation". He did
say the talks with his Chinese interlocutors had been "very good" - a term that
might as well be interpreted as meaning a waste of time.
What Bosworth said or did on his latest go-around, there was not a prayer the
North Koreans were listening - or, if they were, that they would see his
remarks, or his entire trip, as anything other than a peg to alarm the world
yet again by their own exercise in nuclear diplomacy.
In that spirit, the North Korean spokesman declared that North Korea's aim was
to "bolster its national defense", not to "draw attention of someone and have
dialogue with it", and the North would "bolster its nuclear deterrent as it has
already clarified".
The great difference between Bosworth's words and those of whoever dreams up
all those statements in Pyongyang is the latter really means what he says,
whereas Bosworth's "stick-and-carrot" approach is basically all carrots and no
stick. While Bosworth tries to get everyone together on something, or indeed
anything, North Korea is preparing for another nuclear test with the same
determination with which it conducted the first one on October 9, 2006 and
test-fired the long-range Taepodong-2 last month.
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest-selling paper, got the scoop with an
exclusive story reporting "vehicles and personnel" were "busily moving around"
in the northeastern site where the North conducted its first nuclear test. The
conservative paper based its report on comments from an official who said the
North was "speeding up construction at the test site" and was expected to
complete it possibly within a few months.
The site is also capable of launching the long-range missiles that could nuke a
target as far as the US's west coast if North Korean engineers and technicians
figure out how to make a warhead small enough to fit on the tip.
The South Koreans were prepared for Bosworth's arrival from Beijing, after a
briefing well in advance on the five-party idea. No, they didn't quite
characterize the idea as "six minus one", or "six-party manque" or a
"party for six that one of the invited guests regrettably was unable to
attend".
Rather, said South Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman - a real person, visible
to the eye, unlike the one we often hear about in Pyongyang - the five-party
idea was "one of various options", a concept to which he assured everyone the
US "is not opposed".
As a precedent, the South Korean spokesman said working-level talks last June
among the five, China, Japan, and Russia as well as the US and South Korea, on
dispensing energy aid to North Korea had been "very useful", a term almost as
unconvincing as Bosworth's claim that his Beijing talks had been "very good".
In a diplomatic setting in which the word "useful" has become synonymous with
useless, the spokesman said the five figured out what to tell the North Koreans
in six-party talks at the truce village of Panmunjom.
Whatever the six parties talked about nearly a year ago, however, has faded
into the miasma of a history of renewed threats that burst out in an almost
cyclical pattern soon after headlines suggest all is well and long-term peace
assured. It was only last September that Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state
took North Korea's name off the State Department's list of terrorist countries
- one of the North's crucial demands without which the North refused to do
anything.
Against this background, it seems incredible the agreements so painstakingly
contrived in negotiations from 2005 through 2007 appear to have completely
fallen apart. Just as incredible is the prolonged US quest for the renewal of
six-party talks to which North Korea said it would "never" return to after the
United Nations Security Council settled on a message of "condemnation" of its
missile test in early April, rather than the new sanctions initially sought by
the US and Japan.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for "some patience" as she stood
beside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Washington, said all agreed
the six-party talks remained "the goal that we are aiming for".
All, of course, except for the North Koreans, who are convinced they can draw
the US out of the six-party concept and into two-way dialogue that will fulfill
their own goal of isolating and sidelining the South while getting the US to
come to terms on a vast infusion of aid. Bosworth, who visited North Korea
before Obama's inauguration, may be willing to take the bait.
Bosworth kept that option open when he reiterated before getting to Seoul the
US "desire to engage both multilaterally and unilaterally with North Korea". It
may be to head off that particular nightmare that South Korean Foreign Minister
Yu Myung-hwan and nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac mooted the idea of six minus one,
that is five-party talks, while waiting to welcome him.
In the midst of the diplomatic minuet, everyone seemed to have forgotten South
Korea's "firm and clear" intention, as stated by Foreign Minister Yu, to join
the Proliferation Security Initiative, the US-backed program for interdicting
vessels suspected of carrying missiles or nuclear components.
North Korea evidently persuaded the South to put fulfillment of that promise on
hold after saying for South Korea to join would be considered "an act of war" -
a phrase, of course, that did not seem to apply to another test of a nuclear
warhead.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.) warheads and the missiles with which to fire them.
Whatever happened to all those expectations that Obama, the liberal reformer,
would indulge the North's fantasies of grandeur as a member of the world's
elite "nuclear club?"
North Korea's oft-quoted and always anonymous "Foreign Ministry spokesman" had
a ready response. "Nothing would be expected," he was quoted as saying, since
the US "remains unchanged in its hostility toward its dialogue partner".
As the North Korean nuclear crisis, or mini-crisis, or non-crisis simmered on,
the sense was the classic "deja vu all over again", to quote that
philosopher/baseball player Yogi Berra. Just as North Korea was declaring its
determination to test another nuclear weapon, the US special envoy, Stephen
Bosworth, was on the circuit from Beijing to Seoul to Tokyo, twisting arms to
form a common approach on how to get North Korea to return to six-party talks.
Only this time Bosworth is talking about six-party talks minus one, that is
excluding North Korea, meaning it would be five-party talks. There was
something almost plaintive about his quest as he and sidekick Sung Kim, nuclear
envoy from the US State Department's Korea desk, tilted against the windmills
of diplomats first in Beijing, then Seoul and on to Tokyo.
What else could Bosworth say other than to reiterate, "very strongly", the US
line that "the solution", as always, "lies in dialogue and negotiation". He did
say the talks with his Chinese interlocutors had been "very good" - a term that
might as well be interpreted as meaning a waste of time.
What Bosworth said or did on his latest go-around, there was not a prayer the
North Koreans were listening - or, if they were, that they would see his
remarks, or his entire trip, as anything other than a peg to alarm the world
yet again by their own exercise in nuclear diplomacy.
In that spirit, the North Korean spokesman declared that North Korea's aim was
to "bolster its national defense", not to "draw attention of someone and have
dialogue with it", and the North would "bolster its nuclear deterrent as it has
already clarified".
The great difference between Bosworth's words and those of whoever dreams up
all those statements in Pyongyang is the latter really means what he says,
whereas Bosworth's "stick-and-carrot" approach is basically all carrots and no
stick. While Bosworth tries to get everyone together on something, or indeed
anything, North Korea is preparing for another nuclear test with the same
determination with which it conducted the first one on October 9, 2006 and
test-fired the long-range Taepodong-2 last month.
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest-selling paper, got the scoop with an
exclusive story reporting "vehicles and personnel" were "busily moving around"
in the northeastern site where the North conducted its first nuclear test. The
conservative paper based its report on comments from an official, who said the
North was "speeding up construction at the test site" and was expected to
complete it possibly within a few months.
The site is also capable of launching the long-range missiles that could nuke a
target as far as the US's west coast if North Korean engineers and technicians
figure out how to make a warhead small enough to fit on the tip.
The South Koreans were prepared for Bosworth's arrival from Beijing, after a
briefing well in advance on the five-party idea. No, they didn't quite
characterize the idea as "six minus one", or "six-party manque" or a
"party for six that one of the invited guests regrettably was unable to
attend".
Rather, said South Korea's equally anonymous Foreign Ministry spokesman - a
real person, visible to the eye, unlike the one we often hear about in
Pyongyang - the five-party idea was "one of various options", a concept to
which he assured everyone the US "is not opposed".
As a precedent, the South Korean spokesman said working-level talks last June
among the five, China, Japan, and Russia as well as the US and South Korea, on
dispensing energy aid to North Korea had been "very useful", a term almost as
unconvincing as Bosworth's claim that his Beijing talks had been "very good".
In a diplomatic setting in which the word "useful" has become synonymous with
useless, the spokesman said the five figured out what to tell the North Koreans
in six-party talks at the truce village of Panmunjom.
Whatever the six parties talked about nearly a year ago, however, has faded
into the miasma of a history of renewed threats that burst out in an almost
cyclical pattern soon after headlines suggest all is well and long-term peace
assured. It was only last September that Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state
took North Korea's name off the State Department's list of terrorist countries
- one of the North's crucial demands without which the North refused to do
anything.
Against this background, it seems incredible the agreements so painstakingly
contrived in negotiations from 2005 through 2007 appear to have completely
fallen apart. Just as incredible is the prolonged US quest for renewal of
six-party talks to which North Korea said it would "never" return to after the
United Nations Security Council settled on a message of "condemnation" of its
missile test in early April, rather than the new sanctions initially sought by
the US and Japan.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for "some patience" as she stood
beside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Washington, said all agreed
six-party talks remained "the goal that we are aiming for".
All, of course, except for the North Koreans, who are convinced they can draw
the US out of the six-party concept and into two-way dialogue that will fulfill
their own goal of isolating and sidelining the South while getting the US to
come to terms on a vast infusion of aid. Bosworth, who visited North Korea
before Obama's inauguration, may be willing to take the bait.
Bosworth kept that option open when he reiterated before getting to Seoul the
US "desire to engage both multilaterally and unilaterally with North Korea". It
may be to head off that particular nightmare that South Korean Foreign Minister
Yu Myung-hwan and nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac mooted the idea of six minus one,
that is five-party talks, while waiting to welcome him.
In the midst of the diplomatic minuet, everyone seemed to have forgotten South
Korea's "firm and clear" intention, as stated by Foreign Minister Yu, to join
the Proliferation Security Initiative, the US-backed program for interdicting
vessels suspected of carrying missiles or nuclear components. North Korea
evidently persuaded the South to put fulfillment of that promise on hold after
saying for South Korea to join would be considered "an act of war" - a phrase,
of course, that did not seem to apply to another test of a nuclear warhead.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
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