U.S. Envoy Reportedly Meets With North, South Korean Delegates on Nuclear Crisis

Representatives from North Korea, South Korea and the United States are reportedly meeting today in Beijing, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 24).

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is in China as part of a regional tour.  Earlier today in Tokyo, Hill said he was willing to meet with North Korean officials if delegates from other countries were in attendance.

“We can look at other formats,” Hill said.  “The time for organized, multilateral diplomacy in Asia is now” (Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 5).

A U.S. official told Reuters, however, that Hill was not scheduled to meet with North Korean officials during the trip.

“We’re not going to see the North Koreans while they are boycotting the six-party talks,” the official said (Carol Giacomo, Reuters/Washington Post, Sept. 2).

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il might have entered China on Wednesday, prompting increased speculation that the North could be preparing for a nuclear test, the London Guardian reported.

South Korean media reports of a special North Korean train entering Chinese territory came amid increased tension between the two allies over Pyongyang’s missile tests in July, according to the Guardian.

“It’s quite clear that relations between China and North Korea are tense now,” said Shi Yinhong of Renmin University in Beijing.  “Since the North Korean missile test, China has been indirectly supporting U.S. sanctions on Pyongyang.  If today’s visit is confirmed, it may show that Kim Jong Il wants to complain about this.”

“It is a critical time for North Korea.  They are clearly frustrated.  The financial restrictions are getting tighter and the Bush administration is showing no sign of flexibility,” said Peter Beck, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group in Seoul.  “If North Korea wants to do a nuclear test, they would want to consult with China first” (Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, Aug. 30).

South Korea, meanwhile, is considering possible responses to a North Korean nuclear test, Agence France-Presse reported Friday.

“The government has started working on a concrete contingency plan in case North Korea carries out a nuclear testing,” said Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.

“I am willing to go to Pyongyang if it will help” bring Pyongyang back to negotiations on its nuclear program, Ban added (Park Chan-Kyong, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 5).

Japan plans to declare a national emergency if Pyongyang conducts a nuclear test, AP reported Saturday.

Tokyo would organize a crisis headquarters within the office of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, according to defense officials (Associated Press II/CentralChronicle.com, Sept. 2).

North Korea has probably not perfected the technology to create deliverable warheads that would carry its full stockpile of plutonium, the Congressional Research Service said in a report released yesterday.

Pyongyang might have one or two Nagasaki-type nuclear weapons, but could have sufficient fissile material for six bombs, according to the report.

“The question of whether North Korea produced additional nuclear weapons with the plutonium that it apparently acquired after 2003 may depend on whether North Korea is able to develop a nuclear warhead that could be fitted onto its missiles,” the report says.

“North Korea has few delivery systems that could deliver such a bomb to a U.S. or Japanese target,” it adds.

“Thus, Pyongyang probably would not produce additional Nagasaki-type bombs but would retain its weapons-grade plutonium until it could use it in producing a nuclear warhead,” the documents says (Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 4).

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