COMMENT Resolve the North Korean nuclear
issue By Joseph R DeTrani
Given the turmoil in the Middle East and
South Asia and the tension in East Asia, success
in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue is
needed and still could be within reach, despite
North Korea's harsh response to the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) resolution condemning it
for the missile launch in December.
The
fourth round of the six-party talks with North
Korea, in September 2005, produced a joint
statement that declared North Korea was prepared
to dismantle existing nuclear programs in exchange
for economic assistance, ultimate normalization of
relations with the United States and the provision
of a light-water reactor when North Korea returned
to the Non Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) as a non-nuclear
weapons state.
Former North Korean leader
Kim Jong-il endorsed the joint statement, noting
on numerous occasions that North Korea was
prepared to dismantle all of its nuclear programs,
in exchange for security assurances, economic
assistance and normal relations with the US. His
son and successor, Kim Jong-eun, has not commented
on this and has not - as his father stated - made
a commitment to denuclearization. Getting Kim
Jong-eun to do so now will be more difficult, but
not impossible.
Pyongyang's January 24
statement, in response to the January 22 UNSC
resolution, stated: "Under this situation, the
DPRK cannot but declare that there will no longer
exist the six-party talks and the September 19
joint statement." North Korea had made similar
statements on previous occasions but through the
intervention of China and others, had returned to
negotiations. As before, it now must be persuaded
to return to talks.
By way of background,
the optimism the September 19, 2005 Joint
Statement engendered, after three years of
fruitless negotiations that started in August
2003, was short-lived. When in July 2006 North
Korea launched seven missiles, followed by a
nuclear test that October, sanctions were
immediately imposed through UNSC resolutions 1695
and 1718.
At that time, North Korea argued
that the missiles were launched because of a
breach of US breach of trust when the US Treasury,
on the same day that the joint statement was
signed, sanctioned a bank in Macau that was
accused of laundering money for North Korea and
obliged to freeze US$25 million in an account held
by North Korea. When the bank complied with US
law, the money was returned to North Korea.
This resulted in North Korea returning to
the six-party negotiations, where some progress
was made, only to be dashed when North Korea
balked at the US demand that an oral agreement be
put in writing.
We've been in six-party
talks and held numerous bilateral negotiations
with North Korea for almost 10 years. During the
past few of those years, no official six-party
negotiations have taken place and dismal results
have been the outcome of what contact has taken
place. Indeed, over this 10 years of sporadic
negotiation, North Korea has built, sold and
upgraded its stockpile of ballistic missiles and
fabricated more plutonium and highly enriched
uranium-based nuclear weapons. Based on the
December 12, 2012 successful missile launch that
put a satellite in orbit, it appears Pyongyang is
making appreciable progress with long-range
ballistic missiles.
Although the five
countries engaging North Korea in the six-party
talks - China, the US, South Korea, Japan and
Russia - are equally invested in these
negotiations, it's China and the US that have the
most leverage with North Korea. China provides
significant food and energy assistance to North
Korea; its trade with North Korea has increased
significantly and the 1961 Treaty of Friendship,
Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with North Korea
provides a foundation that makes China's
significant leverage clear.
The US has
considerable leverage, in that North Korea wants
security assurances and the normalization of
diplomatic relations, which in turn would give
North Korea access to international financial
institutions and international legitimacy.
Consequently, it would be fair to assume that
China and the US can and should do more,
especially now, to re-engage North Korea before an
escalation of tensions further by Pyongyang makes
a resumption of negotiations inconceivable.
The strategy of insouciance has not been a
success. Engagement at this time with the new
leadership in Pyongyang seems prudent, assuming
the young North Korean leader refrains from any
further missile launches or nuclear tests and, as
his father did, commits to eventual
denuclearization, in line with the September 19,
2005 joint statement. China, working closely with
the US, can move this process forward by getting
Pyongyang to immediately return unconditionally to
the six-party talks.
The goal should be to
get Kim Jong-eun to publicly commit North Korea to
the September 19, 2005 joint statement, declaring
that North Korea is prepared to dismantle all its
nuclear programs in return for security
assurances, economic assistance and ultimate
normalization of relations with the US. Now is the
time to act.
Joseph R DeTrani
was the Special Envoy for Six Party Talks with
North Korea from 2003-2006 and the ODNI North
Korea Mission Manager from 2006-2010. Until
January 2012, he was the Director of the National
Counterproliferation Center. The views and
opinions expressed in this article are those of
the author and are not representative of any US
Government department, agency or office.
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