hankyoreh

Jang Jung-soo, editorial writer

WASHINGTON D.C.-There is basis for progress on real implementation of the February 13 agreement on the North Korean nuclear issue, now that the problem of North Korea's frozen accounts at Banco Delta Asia (BDA) has been resolved. It is very likely the follow-up working talks currently being held are going to pick up speed as a result. As seen in the slow resolution of the issue of North Korean money at BDA, however, following up on the February 13 agreement is not going to be smooth going the whole time. Hashing out the most urgent issues of all - North Korea's complete abandonment of its nuclear program and normalizing ties between the North and the United States - will probably be very complicated and perilous.

Those two issues are as connected as two sides of a coin, and they are issues in which Pyongyang's and Washington's interests collide because each side approaches them with different strategic goals. North Korea

has developed nuclear weapons to secure a deterrent against the possibility of a preemptive American military attack and to use its nuclear capabilities as a weapon in gaining diplomatic relations with Washington. The American goal, on the other hand, is the abandonment or freezing of those capabilities. The Americans do not link nuclear weapons with the establishment of relations. Washington's real intentions are to not go as far as full diplomatic relations, even though the relationship should be improved. This being the case, it is unlikely the U.S. will move straight to exchanging embassies even if the North completely gets rid of its nuclear program. The reason for this, North Korea experts in Washington tell me, is that establishing formal relations would require Congressional approval and the agreement with North Korea would become politicized in the course of

gaining approval, putting President Bush in a difficult position in the process. According to these experts, getting Congress to go along with the plan will be impossible unless there is clear improvement in the North Korean human rights situation.

The Bush administration prefers to establish a liaison office in Pyongyang like was done in China and Libya, since this office would promote relations in a way no different from full diplomatic relations. The U.S. exchanged embassies with China some seven years after president Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong in 1972, but it was

only during the Carter administration that the two countries agreed to full relations. Relations between the U.S. and Libya were restored only in 2006, two years after Libya gave up its nuclear program and handed over all documentation to the Americans. The U.S. has used liaison offices in this way, as a step to full diplomatic relations.

North Korea's negative view of the human exchange that would necessarily follow full relations would also be a major obstacle, since the North's inner circle sees more exchange of people with the U.S. to be a potential threat to its stability. Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill tried to get mention of exchange at a human level in

the part of the February 13 document that describes eventual relations between the two countries, but he was unable to do so because North Korean delegate Kim Kye-gwan opposed it, a demonstration of how Pyongyang does not like the idea of personnel exchange.

So far, Pyongyang's position is that a liaison office will not do, and that the two countries should head straight to official relations. What this means is that differences will gradually emerge as the two sides begin to talk in earnest about formal relations. At this point it would be hard to say what direction things would take if potential

points of discord come to the surface in the discussion process. Since the February 13 agreement has the safety device of having been agreed upon in the six-party format, however, it is unlikely everything at stake will wind up back at square one.

Another source of security here is that there is also separate talk on the building of a peace regime for the peninsula apart from the six-party talks. It is for this reason that concrete discussion on establishing a peace regime for the Korean peninsula should commence at the soonest date possible.

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