hankyoreh

There were many turns in the plot along the way at the six-party head of delegation talks in Beijing, but discussions ended without any agreement about a verification protocol on North Korea’s nuclear program or the rescheduling of a timetable for that country’s nuclear disablement and its receipt of economic and energy aid.

The biggest reason the talks broke down was the failure of North Korea, the United States and other nations party to the six-party process to agree on putting the verification protocol in writing. Specifically, the two sides failed to narrow the gap between the United States, which strongly demanded the verification process be outlined on paper, based on the agreement the two countries arrived at in Pyongyang in October, and also wanted to include a provision for the collection of samples, and a North Korea that did not want verification to go beyond the three verification methods agreed to on paper at the head of delegation talks held in July -- site visits by inspectors, document review and interviews with technicians.

Kim Sook, the head of South Korea’s delegation to the talks, answering questions from reporters after the talks ended Thursday, said he thinks the North Koreans “tried to keep the ambiguity going as long as they could and the Americans didn’t distingush what is a verbal agreement from what could be put in writing.” In other words, the United States and North Korea had different interpretations of the points of understanding between the two countries, agreed to at bilateral talks in Pyongyang in October.

The breakdown in the talks, however, puts in doubt the reliability of the Pyongyang agreement as it pertains to verification. The possibility exists that the North could face accusations it failed to carry out its promises and the United States could be accused of “clumsy” negotiations.

In holding back on the issue of samples, even to the point of allowing the talks to collapse over the matter, North Korea appears to have made the tactical conclusion that instead of yielding to the Bush administration now, it would be more to its advantage to wait until after the inauguration President-elect Barack Obama, who has expressed the intention of having direct talks between the United States and North Korea.

The approach taken by South Korea and Japan in this latest round of talks appears to have been a factor influencing the failure of the talks. The South Korean and Japanese delegations demonstrated an unprecedented degree of solidarity compared to previous rounds of six-party talks, as both stuck to hard-line strategies towards Pyongyang while at the negotiating table. Japan remained focused on Japanese abductees, while South Korea, in a departure from previous negotiations, made no attempt to play the role of “creative agreement promoter” to narrow differences between the representatives from Pyongyang and Washington.

The problems start from here on in. Heightened tensions are inevitable if the United States and South Korea use the North’s “failure to carry out its promises” as a reason to slow the pace of, or halt, economic and energy aid, and if North Korea then responds by dragging its feet over, or halting, the pace of disablement.

Kim Sook reminded reporters of the fact that the matter of having the provision of economic and energy aid to North Korea complete by next March, something about which there had already been agreement, was not included in the chairman’s statement.

He avoided questions about whether Seoul will halt aid for the North.

“That’s a sensitive matter about which I will have consultations when I return” to Seoul, he said.

But he went on to say that while he “cannot talk in a completely negative way” about aid, “that does not mean that we can just give aid while giving no thought to everything else,” hinting that cutting off aid is within the realm of possibility.

Even if Pyongyang, on the one hand, and Seoul and Washington, on the other, manage to avoid the worst of confrontational situations by exercising restraint in the name of managing the situation, the fact the situation overlaps with the coming change of administration in the United States means the six-party process will probably be at a stalemate for some time. Furthermore, the Obama administration could feel that proactive engagement with Pyongyang is something of a political risk if American public opinion is critical of the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism without getting Pyongyang to stick to its side of what was agreed.

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