World Watch: Korean nuke talks start anew
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, "It is not the goal of the [North Korean nuclear] talks to have talks." But this week, amid uncommon cordiality between U.S. and North Korean negotiators in Beijing, there is undisguised, collective relief that the six-party talks aimed at ending the North's drive for nuclear weapons have resumed after a 13-month hiatus.
Over that time, Pyongyang may have built up to eight nuclear bombs, and it abandoned the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and declared itself a nuclear-weapons state. The North's defiance prompted some Bush administration officials to consider trying to move the issue to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions and a de facto quarantine. The administration also revved up efforts to deny the North Korean regime proceeds from its reported trafficking in drugs, cigarettes, and counterfeit currency.
On Tuesday, North Korea's lead negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, declared that his country, which has boycotted talks since June 2004, wanted to see progress. But he insisted at the Chinese-hosted meeting that the Bush administration would need to normalize relations with Pyongyang and eliminate any U.S. or South Korean nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula if a deal is to be done. The North called for a formal peace treaty to replace the cease-fire from the 1950-53 Korean War that remains in effect.
Early this week, Kim met twice with the top U.S. diplomat in the talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. Hill is widely seen as having more room to maneuver than did his predecessor in Bush's first term, James Kelly. In previous negotiating rounds, diplomats read out most of their remarks in fairly static, rote speeches in so-called "plenary" sessions. Each round ended after about three days, with little or no progress to show for it. Disagreements within the Bush administration over how flexibly to negotiate with the North appeared to cut the chances for a breakthrough.
This time, Hill and other U.S. officials intend to push quickly beyond the plenaries, and they are showing a greater willingness to meet one on one with the North Koreans—a point of flexibility seen as crucial by many observers of the talks. In addition, officials have set no end date for this, the fourth round of talks. They even anticipate breaks for consultations if North Korean negotiators need to travel back to Pyongyang.
"For the first time, we have the mechanics for progress," says Charles Pritchard, a former State Department official who negotiated with Pyongyang on nuclear issues who is now with the Brookings Institution. Pritchard cites as a difference from the past "a significant effort by Chris Hill to negotiate." Pritchard doubts this round will yield a deal in principle, but he anticipates progress nonetheless. Every one of the six countries participating—save for North Korea—has sent new negotiators to Beijing.
In the talks this week, Hill reiterated that the United States has "absolutely no intention to invade or attack" the North. He also called North Korean sovereignty "a matter of fact." He referred to a proposal first laid out in June 2004 that would give the North three months to implement a verifiable freeze in its nuclear activities, followed by their rapid dismantlement. In Washington's view, energy and economic aid should only begin to flow—and, for that matter, from South Korea and China and not the United States—after the freeze is verified. The Bush administration does not even want to negotiate over North Korean demands for normalizing relations until all of the North's plutonium- and uranium-based nuclear programs are disbanded and the radioactive materials and equipment carted out of the country.
Hill also noted that U.S. military forces removed all nuclear weapons from South Korea by the early 1990s, pointing to a possible new area of dispute with the North. Still, Chinese officials hailed the opening of the talks as demonstrating greater "flexibility" than in the past.
After meeting with Kim, Hill said that North Korea was concerned about the "sequencing" of U.S. actions in relation to North Korean obligations. He said that once the North disarms, the United States and others would propose steps "consistent with the principle of 'words for words and actions for actions.' " That is the language of diplomacy, back at long last in the hard case of North Korea.
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