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North Korea is taking a very proactive approach to denuclearization. At the three-day round of six-party talks in Beijing it is said to have announced its intention to declare everything about its production, use and current stock of plutonium and accept outside verification. It also had the attitude that it would speak to all suspicions regarding a uranium enrichment program. This is consistent with the “complete declaration of all nuclear programs” as called for in the February 13 agreement. There has also been concrete agreement about North Korea “disabling” all existing nuclear facilities within the end of the year. Central to this will be removing the key parts from, and keeping under special care, the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, a reprocessing facility and nuclear fuel rod manufacturing plant. The United States has long put pressure on North Korea, but at this recent round of talks North Korea strongly demanded action in response from the United States, showing you how the six-party process has been through all kinds of ups and downs and now enters a new phase.

This time around the obstacles have come from the United States. It was said that at talks with North Korea in Geneva in early September, the United States promised to remove the North from its list of terror-sponsoring states and stop applying the Trading With the Enemy Act. However, it is still reluctant to put that in writing, which is why adopting a statement for these talks has been postponed until October 2. The reason for the U.S. attitude is a realistic one, namely that both issues would require Congressional approval. Hard-liners in the United States have been regaining their voice again, so circumstances are such that it would be hard to announce a timetable for removing the terror designation before it has been confirmed that Pyongyang has fully carried out the February 13 agreement. Nevertheless, the United States’ attitude at these talks was regrettable. If clear action is not taken when a critical point is being passed the talks as a whole could go amiss.

Despite the problems, this latest round of talks will go down as having opened up the way for the abandonment of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the normalization of U.S.-North Korea relations. If nuclear disablement and program declaration is carried out by the end of the year, the very next step will be actually getting rid of the nuclear program. Removing Pyongyang from the terror sponsoring state list will then allow for full consideration of measures that would lead to normalizing ties between Pyongyang and Washington. Getting something accomplished at the six-party talks depends on effort on the part of all the countries participating in the process, but it will be particularly important for there to be confidence and good faith action on the part of Pyongyang and Washington for the agreement to be implemented. It is only a matter of course that this will require an active role on the part of South Korea. The inter-Korean summit beginning in Pyongyang on October 2 should significantly contribute to a smooth completion of the current round of six-party talks and the transition to the next phase in the implementation of the February 13 agreement.

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