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North Korea Agrees to New Round of Nuclear Talks
Pyongyang announced Saturday that it would resume multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations during the week of July 25, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 8). China offered to again host the talks, and “all the parties have agreed,” the official told the Times (Brinkley/Sanger, New York Times, July 10). Kim also told Hill that North Korea would respond in detail to a U.S. proposal presented at the last round of talks to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program, senior U.S. officials traveling with Rice told Agence France-Presse (see GSN, June 24, 2004; Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 11). Washington is willing to be flexible on the terms of its proposal if Pyongyang presents the details of its concerns when talks resume, U.S. officials traveling with Rice said yesterday. “It was a proposal, not a demand,” one official told the Washington Post. “It was to get things started, which is why it is important to hear back.” U.S. officials have said they are still not sure whether the North’s decision indicates a genuine desire to resolve the dispute or is yet another effort to buy time to expand its nuclear arsenal, the Post reported (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 11). Rice and her Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, said Pyongyang’s decision was “only the first step,” Agence France-Press reported yesterday. “We agreed that this is only the first step, and the real issue is to make progress in the talks,” Rice said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 10). “It is not the goal of the talks to have talks,” she said. “It is the goal of the talks to have progress” (Washington Post, July 11). Other Bush administration officials also warned that they expected progress at the next round of talks, the Times reported. “We’ve made it clear they can’t just come back and lecture us, like the last sessions,” said a senior U.S. official in Washington. “Either they get on the path to disarmament, or we move to Plan B.” U.S. officials have recently said there are three main hurdles to a resolution of the standoff: whether Pyongyang is willing to completely and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program; whether it is willing to do so before receiving any promised rewards; and whether true verification of dismantlement would be possible, even if promised. However, while North Korea has in the past demanded turning the six-party talks into regional disarmament negotiations, it has made no such demand as a precondition for resuming talks, the senior U.S. official said (New York Times, July 10). A wide-ranging South Korean aid proposal for Pyongyang is expected to be revealed at the talks, Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, said today (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 11). Pyongyang said yesterday it would do its “utmost” to make progress when negotiations resume, Reuters reported. “The resumption of the talks itself is important but the most essential thing is for the talks to have an in-depth discussion on ways of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula to make substantial progress in the talks,” the official KCNA news agency announced (Reuters, July 10). Increased contact and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang, as well as a substantial incentive package from South Korea, led to the North’s decision, analysts told Reuters yesterday. “They believed that if they didn’t come back to the table soon, actions would be taken,” said Derek Mitchell, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some analysts said that, even upon resumption of the talks, immediate progress was unlikely. “North Korea may try to change the agenda of the talks by seeking a peace treaty with the United States or by discussing a possible reduction of the military presence on the Korean Peninsula,” said Masao Okonogi, a professor at Tokyo’s Keio University (Reuters, July 10). Major differences remain between Pyongyang and Washington, including U.S. allegations that North Korea is running a parallel uranium enrichment program to its acknowledged plutonium-based program, one analyst told AFP today. “I don’t see how the process can move forward until North Korea admits it has such a program. It’ll be amazing if the U.S. is willing to set this aside, and the odds are very slim that North Korea will admit this,” said Ralph Cossa, executive director of the Pacific Forum. He also said Pyongyang’s decision to resume talks may be related to cooperation between the United States and China, Pyongyang’s largest aid provider, rather than any desire by Pyongyang to resolve the situation. “North Korea realized they had milked the playing-hard-to-get game for long enough but they are still very much playing politics,” said Cossa. “In my opinion it is still 60-40 that they will show up and 40-60 that they will engage in any meaningful dialogue,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, July 11).
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