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Negotiating Partners Begin Formulating Proposed Steps for North Korea Nuclear Disarmament
Work has begun to determine the specific steps by which North Korea would dismantle its nuclear programs and the reciprocal measures to be granted by the five countries negotiating with Pyongyang, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said today (see GSN, Sept. 27). “We have launched preparations to set up specific steps and their sequence, focusing on nuclear dismantlement and corresponding measures,” Ban said. China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States are expected to resume multilateral negotiations in November, Reuters reported (Jack Kim, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 28). Finalizing the terms for North Korea’s disarmament could take years, an analyst said yesterday. The agreement reached last week in Beijing “is an expressed destination but not a roadmap how to get there,” said Center for Strategic and International Studies adviser and former Assistant Secretary of State Robert Einhorn (see GSN, Sept. 19). “It is easy to overstate what happened,” Einhorn said. “It could take years.” North Korea is skilled at pitting its negotiating partners against one another, said Derek Mitchell, a former Defense Department official and a senior fellow at the center. Pyongyang is aware of the desire by China and South Korea for stability in the region “at all cost,” Mitchell said. The two countries forced acknowledgement of North Korea’s right to a nuclear energy program into the agreement, the analysts said. “The question is whether China and South Korea will apply real leverage on North Korea,” Mitchell said (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 27).
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