Hopes Drop for Rapid North Korean Disarmament

North Korea’s rhetorical assault this week on a military exercise involving South Korea and the United States doused hopes for rapid movement to close down the regime’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 3).

Pyongyang said yesterday that the “Key Resolve” exercise undermines the six-nation process aimed at shuttering its nuclear activities.  It made the now-standard threat to strengthen its “deterrent,” the code word for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

The statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry came amid faltering progress on the 2007 denuclearization agreement and only days after the New York Philharmonic performed in Pyongyang.

Only when Pyongyang stops issuing such declarations will outsiders know that a “revolution has begun in North Korea,” said expert Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.  That is not likely to happen in the near future, he said.

“Just one concert will do more or less nothing,” Lankov said.  “It’s good, but it’s just a small drop; there should be many such drops.”

However, there was a sign of possible movement in the weekend visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang, AP reported.  Ambassador Liu Xiaoming “conveyed the regards” of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Kim.  Beijing hosts the six-party talks and has been key in the U.S. effort to press the regime toward nuclear disarmament (Burt Herman, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 3).

Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met today with his South Korean counterpart in the negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported.

Hill and Chun Young-woo “exchanged opinions on the six-party talks” during their meeting near Seoul, said a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman.  The negotiations involve China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 4).

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