Global Security Newswire

New U.S. President Barack Obama should break with the policy of his predecessor and take quick action to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, a Japanese newspaper friendly to the regime in Pyongyang said today (see GSN, Jan. 21).

"The old U.S. policy set up an order of confrontation on the Korean peninsula and threatened peace," according to the Choson Sinbo newspaper. "If President Obama's inauguration speech means he would abandon the bad practices of coerciveness and arbitrariness, and act positively in the international arena, the peace and security regime in this region is a subject" necessary for consideration.

Washington has been one participant in the years-old six-party talks -- along with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea -- aimed at persuading Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear operations and holdings, including weapons. The effort reached a major milestone in 2007 when North Korea agreed to denuclearization in exchange for economic, diplomatic and security concessions from the other nations. Pyongyang since then has taken several steps toward meeting its obligations, but the process has proved rocky and is currently stalled over details of verification of the scope of its nuclear sector.

Obama has indicated his willingness to engage North Korea directly in order to promote the process. The North Korean Foreign Ministry, though, said last week that nuclear disarmament must be preceded by establishment of diplomatic relations with Washington and proof that there are no U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Jan. 22).

Observers said they did not believe the Obama administration's policy on North Korea would be drastically different from that of the Bush administration, which ended its term Tuesday, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

The new leadership in Washington is likely to "continue the six-party talks, and would be willing to begin a process that could lead to bilateral discussions at some future time," said Brookings Institution researcher Barry Bosworth.

"At this point there is not a large difference on policy on North Korea between the old and new administrations," he said.

"Regarding Korea policy, the main difference between the Obama and Bush administrations will be that President Obama will take a more pragmatic approach," said David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program at Stanford University. "U.S. strategic aims regarding North Korea and the U.S.-[South Korea] alliance will not change."

Straub added that he did not expect Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to make any trips to Pyongyang in the near future.

"She will only visit there if she has good reason to believe that North Korea will respond quite positively on the nuclear issue," he said. "A visit by President Obama to North Korea will only happen to cement a firm nuclear deal" (Yonhap News Agency I, Jan. 21).

Meanwhile, Russian Ambassador to South Korea Glev Ivashendsov said yesterday that his nation does not accept North Korea as a nuclear power, Yonhap reported.

Pyongyang has argued that its 2006 nuclear test blast gave it standing among the world's recognized nuclear weapons states. While some U.S. documents have appeared to agree, Washington's official stance has been that North Korea is not a nuclear power.

The blast itself produced a yield of less than one kiloton, suggesting that the test was something of a dud.

"The explosion occurred just 177 kilometers from the Russian territory, so this issue has direct repercussions on Russia," Ivashendsov said during a speech in Seoul (Yonhap News Agency II, Jan. 22).

Elsewhere, a high-level Chinese official was conducting talks today with officials in Pyongyang, Agence France-Presse reported.

Wang Jiarui was likely to say that the government in Beijing "is much more optimistic with the Obama administration than [former President George W.] Bush's, and that it'd be in North Korea's interest to cooperate in the nuclear negotiations," Sejong Institute expert Paik Hak-soon told Yonhap.

Wang might also meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who has not made a public appearance since reportedly suffering a stroke last summer (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Jan. 22).