hankyoreh

the United States’ top nuclear negotiator

Christopher Hill, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is believed to be planning a trip to North Korea this week to find a way to resume the stalled six-party negotiations on the North’s nuclear weapons program, amid an increase in tension after Pyongyang said it would re-start a reprocessing plant at its key nuclear facility in Yongbyon.

On September 27 (EDT), The Washington Post reported that Hill was fine-tuning his schedule for a visit to North Korea, citing high-ranking officials at the U.S. State Department, who had not yet made the announcement about the visit official. The Post reported today that State Department spokesman Sean McCormack had “confirmed Hill would fly to Seoul, South Korea, on Monday.” McCormack did not comment on Hill’s schedule, though it is assumed he will meet with North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan in Pyongyang. Hill’s visit is likely to turn the tide in six-party negotiations, which have been at a stalemate since mid-August.

If Hill is able to make a breakthrough, it will allow the six nations to move forward with the North Korean nuclear disarmament deal, the second phase of which includes completion of the disablement process as outlined in the September 19 Joint Declaration. The six parties could then move on to the third phase, which requires the North to abandon its nuclear program. On the contrary, if the talks were to fail at this point, it could potentially result in a series of adverse consequences such as the North’s restarting its nuclear reprocessing facility and the discontinuation economic and energy aid to North Korea by the five other nations party to the talks -- South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

While South Korean government officials have been tight-lipped over the prospects for the talks, some experts have been cautiously optimistic. On September 28, Kim Yeon-cheol, the head of The Hankyoreh Peace Research Institute, said that concessions are possible because the Bush administration wants to wrap up the second phase of the process by the end of its term and North Korea wants the U.S. to remove it from its list of state sponsors terrorism.

Behind the cautious optimism lies the view that the Bush administration, with the end of its term just months away, may try to salvage the six-party negotiations. If tensions were to flare between North Korea and the United States, it would undermine progress in the North Korean nuclear issue -- something many see as one of the Bush administration’s biggest diplomatic achievements -- and deal a blow to the U.S. Republican Party ahead of the U.S. presidential election scheduled for November 4.

Some analysts speculate that the United States will present a revised proposal that softens the scope and standard of the nuclear verification protocol, which North Korea has up to this point strongly refused to accept.

Attention is also being focused on reports that North Korea, which says it will restart its nuclear reprocessing facility, has accepted the idea of Hill’s visit. That would mean North Korea has not ruled out the possibility of negotiating an agreement.

North Korea and the United States have been in a tug-of-war over the nuclear verification protocol and the date for removing the North from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, the core issue at this point is the nuclear verification plan. If North Korea and the United States agree on a plan, the United States will act swiftly to remove the North from its terrorism list.

At stake is whether Hill’s verification proposal will be an offer North Korea can accept. The United States has demanded North Korea allow its inspectors to “visit suspected nuclear facilities and sites and collect samples from the Yongbyon nuclear facility.” But Pyongyang accused the United States of making a “thief-like request that would disarm” North Korea, calling the demand for verification a “house search.”

The Washington Post recently reported that the United States was seeking “full access to any site, facility or location” deemed relevant to the nuclear program, including military facilities. The U.S. daily said the U.S. proposal was too strict and had met opposition from China and Russia. David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan research group, told the newspaper that the U.S. demand would be “completely unacceptable to any country’s sovereignty.”

Owing to those reasons, experts say the United States and North Korea could find a compromise if the United States were to focus on verifying the North’s nuclear facilities in Yongbyon and be willing consider the idea of continuing talks or setting up a separate, non-disclosure verification plan for the alleged uranium enrichment program.

However, it is too early to talk about the prospects for talks between the United States and North Korea because Hill is likely to demand that the North allow inspectors to visit facilities that were not previously reported in the declaration and collect samples as part of the verification protocol. If North Korea regards a revised offer from Hill as unacceptable, it will eventually restart the nuclear reprocessing facility as part of its long-term strategy for a new game with a new U.S. administration.

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