hankyoreh

Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, officially announced Tuesday that he plans to visit North Korea. This announcement marks three months since former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited North Korea and opened a path for North Korea-U.S. dialogue. The two nations have discussed the resumption of dialogue through the New York channel and North Korean Foreign Ministry U.S. Affairs Bureau Director Ri Gun’s visit to the U.S. The announcement of Bosworth’s trip indicates an agreement has been made on the agenda and format of dialogue that is to take place between North Korea and the U.S.

The U.S., prior to President Barack Obama’s tour of Asia, announced Bosworth’s trip despite the first inter-Korean naval clash in the West Sea in seven ears. This shows that the U.S. has moved a step closer towards a firm line to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue since the time of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s visit to North Korea early last month. This forecasts that with the visit, phases of full-scale negotiations will begin.

In utilizing this opportunity, the U.S. needs to abandon its excessively cautious posture and take the lead in creating an atmosphere for negotiation. It is hard to deny that fundamentally, the two most important actors in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue are the U.S. and North Korea. Although the U.S. government says that Bosworth’s trip does not stand in for North Korea-U.S. talks and that dialogue should take place within the framework of the six-party talks, if the two sides do not trust one another as negotiating partners, it will be unable to smoothly resume the six-party talks. Accordingly, the U.S. must sufficiently reveal a stance based on its own initiative during the visit and lead in discussions in a manner that allows North Korea a way to abandon its nuclear program.

North Korea, on its part, must not stick to dialogue with only the U.S. and ignore the six-party talks, which has provided the framework for discussing the nuclear issue for the last six years. The six-party talks is the most appropriate framework for progressing discussion on the economic aid North Korea hopes for, security guarantees, and a Korean peace regime. If North Korea continues to appear rigid, the Obama administration, which began talks after much difficulty, could suffer a backlash.

The South Korean government must stop going against the greater trend of resolving the nuclear issue through dialogue and consider more intensely what it can do to play a leading role. It is a good thing that the Lee administration has decided to handle the West Sea naval clash in a way that does not aggravate inter-Korean relations, but it must not maintain this passive attitude. The objective is to improve inter-Korean ties because it and South Korea’s voice on matters pertaining to the Korean Peninsula go hand-in-hand.

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