Pyongyang stage set for Bosworth talks
By Kim Myong Chol*
The United States point man on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, on Tuesday began
a three-day visit to North Korea, in what is the first direct talks between the
Barack Obama administration and the administration of Supreme Leader Kim
Jong-il. Bosworth's trip is the first tangible step taken by the US towards a
strategic decision it has taken to accept a nuclear North Korea.
It is also a reminder of the "honeymoon situation" between the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the US, an expression used by the US
Central Intelligence Agency director, Leon Panetta, in a September 18 interview
with Bloomberg. Panetta also said the US and North Korea "are discussing the
ability to try to talk with one another".
Three earlier signs of the thaw between the two enemies are compelling: the
first was the chilly US response to the "grand bargain" that South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak offered the North on September 21, which was obviously
aimed at downplaying Panetta's honeymoon remark. The New York Times on
September 22 quoted a senior US administration official dismissing the proposal
as "far-fetched".
The second is US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's refusal on November 11 to
let Bosworth's planned visit be affected by a naval skirmish between North and
South Korean vessels. The incident was provoked by South Korea in a bid to
induce Washington to cancel the US envoy's visit. North Korea had nothing to
gain from heightened tensions over the skirmish, given the "honeymoon"
situation with the US, and the Korean People's Army refrained from taking any
prompt retaliatory steps in response to the US's call for restraint.
The third sign is an unmistakable change in Clinton's demands on North Korea:
from the elimination of its nuclear programs to a recommitment to
denuclearization.
On February 17, Reuters reported that Clinton demanded that North Korea should
first end its nuclear programs if it wants to improve relations with the US. In
a major shift, however, she said in a November 20 interview with Bloomberg
Radio in Kabul, Afghanistan: "On behalf of the United States, we would explore
some of the issues which they have raised continually with us over the years;
namely, normalization of relations, a peace treaty instead of an armistice,
economic development assistance. All of that would be open for discussion. But
the North Koreans have to commit to denuclearization."
The American envoy's visit will conclude 2009, a year of historic significance
during which Kim Jong-il has engineered the irretrievable emergence of the Land
of Morning Calm as a full-fledged space and nuclear power, as well as creating
this "honeymoon situation" with the Obama administration. These were achieved
through Kim Jong-il's meeting with former American president Bill Clinton and
his presiding over the DPRK's second launch of a satellite into orbit and
second nuclear test.
Bosworth will be the first Western official to visit Pyongyang since the North
began a currency redenomination over the November 30-December 6 period. He will
see with his own eyes that Kim Jong-il has steered his country towards an
impressive economic recovery and that the leader is well poised to lead the
nation to economic prosperity by 2012, effectively resisting the US-led UN
sanctions and rendering unattractive any offers of economic assistance.
A Newsweek article published on May 30, "How Kim Affords His Nukes" attempted
to dispel various myths surrounding North Korea:
Pyongyang has revamped
its outdated infrastructure in recent years and repaired the mining facilities
that were battered by massive floods during the mid-'90s. It now aims to shift
from recovery to growth, with a focus on steel production, mining and
light-industrial manufacturing.
Second, the North doesn't have to rely on the black market to support itself
... The [US] Treasury Department couldn't find a single shred of hard evidence
pointing to North Korean production of counterfeit money. ... The biggest myth
is that North Korea remains isolated ... Pyongyang today has diplomatic and
commercial relations with more than 150 countries, including most European
Union members. North Korea trades its abundant gold reserves ... in cities like
London, Zurich and Hong Kong, and buys and sells shares on the New York Stock
Exchange ....
... In 2008, the country's overall trade rose 30 percent from the previous
year, reaching a record $3.8 billion, including imports of $2.7 billion,
according to Seoul's Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.
Kim
Jong-il's military-first policy has figured prominently in his successful
transformation of the state into an increasingly wealthy nuclear power. The
achievement, made in spite of sanctions and constant US attempts at nuclear
blackmail, is nothing short of miracle. Its bottom line is unmistakable: full
ties with the US can be dispensed with when building a mighty and prosperous
state, even though the contrary was the case with Japan, South Korea and China.
Bosworth's visit is taking place due to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il granting a
plea made by Bill Clinton for bilateral talks between the two enemies. The
request was made, and granted, when the former US President visited Pyongyang
carrying a personal message from President Barack Obama.
The US envoy's visit will represent a first step for the Obama administration
towards a long-awaited strategic decision, that is, learning to live with a
nuclear North Korea. This will include signing a peace treaty and establishing
full relations with the DPRK.
Bosworth's primary mission is to explore a possible agreement with North Korea
on the "containment" of its nuclear weapons program, as the New York Times
reported in its August 9 article "Coming to Terms with Containing North Korea".
The article commented: "No one in Washington will admit - at least on the
record - that 'containment' has become the primary objective; indeed, the
government's official goal is still 'complete, verifiable nuclear disarmament',
wording drawn from the Bush era."
Bosworth's meetings with North Korean officials will vindicate the widely
shared assumption among Obama's aides, some of whom have wrestled with North
Korea for two decades, that "North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear
weapons in the foreseeable future despite the upcoming talks with Washington",
as Agence France-Presse on November 11 quoted David Straub, former head of the
US State Department's Korea desk, as saying.
It is reckless for a nuclear power to refuse to recognize another nation's
nuclear power status and order it to give up its nuclear weapons. All
independent nations have the inalienable sovereign right to acquire whatever
weapon they deem necessary to defend their paramount national security
interests.
The US's refusal to accept a nuclear North Korea is an "ostrich" policy, and it
does not affect the fact that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state with a
fleet of Intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching US
metropolitan areas. The refusal simply means that the US is closing its eyes
while the DPRK continues to expand its global nuclear strike force.
A disquieting aspect of the nuclear standoff between North Korea and the US is
the absence of a peace treaty and full diplomatic ties find the two enemies,
which are locked into a technical state of war. The Korean Peninsula is the
only place in the world where two million heavily armed troops confront each
other across a narrow strip of land known as the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and
where two nuclear powers keep nuclear strike forces on standby around the clock
Any incident such as a naval clash, downing of an enemy reconnaissance flight,
or preparations of a rocket for launch could rapidly escalate into a new war
between the US and North Korea, which would be the first nuclear exchange
between the nations.
A doomsday scenario will come into full play in the metropolitan US, with
H-bomb warheads exploding in the skies as resumed hostilities over Korea
spiraled into a nuclear exchange fought on the mainland US. This would be quite
unlike the previous Korean War (1950-1953) and the US-led wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, which left most American citizens unscathed.
The booming economies of South Korea and Japan will also be annihilated in a
nuclear conflagration, which will in turn spill over into neighboring China and
Russia.
Its two nuclear tests have elevated North Korea to the status of a permanent
nuclear power, and for the the Kim Jong-il administration to eliminate its
nuclear weapons program, Washington must meet two demands: one is to cease to
be an enemy and the other is disarming and undertaking the global disarmament
of all nuclear powers.
The sole way forward is for the Obama administration to come to terms with
these realities. However, Panetta aptly summed it up when he said the Kim
Jong-il administration and the Obama administration are currently in "a
honeymoon situation", and the US is moving in the right direction.
Another significant factor was noted in the recent article "Non-proliferation
Policy Towards North Korea" [1]. This report noted, "With North Korea's
declaration in 2003 of withdrawal from NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], its
compliance is now no longer a 'simple' question of verifying disarmament and
the absence of undeclared activities, facilities and materials. Instead, it
begins to look much more like US policies toward India, Pakistan and Israel."
The Kim Jong-il administration is interested in taking some non-proliferation
measures to address US concerns, if the Obama administration ends the more than
half-century long, Cold War-era technical state of war on the Korean Peninsula
by signing a peace treaty with the Kim Jong-il administration and establishing
full ties with Pyongyang. Those non-proliferation measures may include
recommitting to nuclear denuclearization.
Since the DPRK is a nuclear power, the Kim Jong-il administration is interested
in holding negotiations with another nuclear power, the US, on taking mutual
detargeting steps, and setting up a direct line of communication between
Pyongyang and Washington.
The Kim Jong-il administration is interested in considering ending its nuclear
weapons program, if the Obama administration initiates global nuclear
disarmament and is ready to consider attending an international conference on
nuclear disarmament.
Notes:
1. See: Nonproliferation
Policy Towards North Korea: Sharon Squassoni, Senior Associate,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Fred McGoldrick, Principal,
Bengelsdorf, McGoldrick and Associates, LLC - September 2009.
* Kim Myong Chol is author of a number of books and papers in Korean,
Japanese and English on North Korea, including Kim Jong-il's Strategy
for Reunification. He has a PhD from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's
Academy of Social Sciences and is often called an "unofficial" spokesman of Kim
Jong-il and North Korea.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
