hankyoreh

North Korea finally went into detail about its position regarding nuclear verification on September 19. Other six-party nations such as South Korea, the United States and China have begun talking about how to respond. The discord could become drawn-out if, this time around as well, everyone fails to produce a turn in the atmosphere. The moment calls for a productive compromise, one that harmonizes principles and reality.

It is worthy to note that Hyon Hak-bong, the vice director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s American affairs bureau, and the foreign ministry spokesman both said the same thing on the same day. Hyon used a meeting of the two Korean sides to the six-party talks, organized to talk about economic and energy aid, to give the South Korean delegation a detailed explanation of the North’s position on verification. His spiel took the form of asking the South to work to facilitate a breakthrough between Pyongyang and Washington on their differences over verification. It also happened to be the third anniversary of the September 19 Joint Statement. The Southern delegation’s assessment was that the “North seems to have a degree of interest in the continuance of the whole of the six-party process.”

In short, Pyongyang’s position is that it cannot accept the “nuclear verification by international standards” demanded by the United States as condition for removing it from the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. It is essentially saying that permitting sudden and unannounced searches would be like forced household searches and, as was the case with Iraq, it would only lead to heightened political tensions without ever leading to resolution. It wants to see the United States remove it from the state terrorism list and stop the rest of what Pyongyang sees as a policy of hostility towards it before a high level of verification is demanded. This is somewhat realistic, given the low level of mutual trust between the North and the United States.

The nations participating in the six-party talks, therefore, need to come up with a compromise that accommodates some of the North’s position. One way to do that would be to have the verification protocol focus on the nuclear facility at Yongbyon and then expand the areas covered by verification as the denuclearization process enters the “third stage.” Pyongyang, for its part, needs to be more transparent so that it can make the other five parties believe it when it says it wants to do away with its nuclear programs. Just as has been the case with the whole negotiation process so far, it would be productive to move forward with a process of give-and-take instead of backtracking after trying to have all the nations party to the process get everything at once.

The North declared last month that it was halting the work of nuclear disablement, and now it has begun restoring the nuclear facility in earnest. The verification deal remains valid, in other words, but the situation could get worse. The six-party talks could lose overall momentum since the American presidential election is just around the corner. South Korea, the United States, and China need to engage in a creative and concentrated effort. There is no time to waste in hesitation.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]