Return to Six-Way Talks
04/08/2006
Korea Herald
The prospects are fast diminishing for an early negotiated dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, with Pyongyang showing no sign of resuming negotiations anytime soon. Washington is warning it is running out of patience over Pyongyang's boycott of the six-way nuclear talks, which have been stalled since November.
What is more troubling is that China does not appear to be as enthusiastic as before about bringing North Korea to the negotiating table. Instead, China is reportedly becoming reluctant to share information with South Korea, which Seoul says is vital in putting common pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
The major stumbling block to an early breakthrough in the standoff is North Korea's precondition for reopening the official channel of negotiations. Pyongyang says it will not return to the six-way nuclear talks unless Washington withdraws financial sanctions against the North's alleged money-laundering and counterfeiting activities.
As the South Korean unification minister, Lee Jong-seok, correctly said, Pyongyang is grossly misguided in linking the six-way talks with the financial sanctions. He said South Korea and the other parties concerned will be able to ask Washington to be more lenient toward North Korea only when it returns to the six-way talks and becomes more flexible in its demands.
North Korea will do well to heed this unusually caustic advice from the unification minister, who has been more sympathetic to its causes than many other South Korean policymakers. The North should not take his remarks lightly when he says he detects "subtle changes" in the American attitude toward North Korea, because he is privy to confidential information.
News reports from the United States, however, suggest the changes are more obvious than subtle, with hardliners again insisting that sanctions are more effective than negotiations in handling North Korea. A Knight Ridder report says Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have severely curtailed the power of the U.S. chief delegate to the six-party talks.
The damaging impact of the U.S. financial sanctions on North Korea may have encouraged the hawks to reassert themselves. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey told the Senate Banking Committee earlier this week that they are forcing banks around the world to slam their doors on North Korea, "constricting the flow of dirty cash into Kim Jong-il's regime."
But it will be wise of Washington not to push Pyongyang too far, as it will certainly backfire. North Korea may wish to soften the impact of the U.S. financial sanctions on its economy by asking for greater aid from China. South Korea has voiced its concern that an isolated North Korea may choose to terminate the nuclear negotiations, seek greater support from China and thus push itself deeper into China's sphere of influence.
The South Korean unification minister may have wanted to get this message across when he urged the United States to consider the issue of dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program more seriously.
The implications of these recent developments deserve candid discussion among all parties to the nuclear talks - the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. A rare opportunity to deal with them will be provided when government officials, military officers and academics attend the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, scheduled to be held in Japan tomorrow through Thursday.
Still better, the participants will include U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Gye-gwan. They are urged to meet on the sidelines of the unofficial forum and try hard to salvage the moribund six-way talks. They need to realize that they may have no better chance to do so in the future.
