hankyoreh

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

Movements toward dialogue among countries concerned with North Korea’s nuclear program are starting to materialize. While North Korea’s proposal for dialogue was stalled for a time by the breakdown of inter-Korean government-level talks and the US insistence that Pyongyang must take steps toward denuclearization first, there are signs that the overall situation is continuing to transition toward talks.

On June 6, North Korea suddenly proposed government-level inter-Korean talks through a statement from the spokesperson of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF). Just after these talks were cancelled the next week, the North brought forward an offer for high-level talks with the US in a statement by the spokesperson of the National Defense Commission.

In addition, Kim Kye-kwan, North Korea’s First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited China from June 19-22 for strategic talks. During the talks, he said that the North welcomed dialogue in any form, including the six-party talks. He is also reportedly scheduled to visit Russia.

There is also increasing movement toward talks in the US and South Korea. On June 19, the envoys to the six-party talks from South Korea, US, and Japan convened in Washington, D.C. After the trilateral talks, Cho Tae-yong, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, suggested that Pyongyang must do more than what is required in the Feb. 29 agreement for the proposal to be accepted.

The agreement between the US and North Korea that was released on Feb. 29, 2012 stipulated that the US would provide North Korea with 240,000 tons of nutritional assistance in exchange for North Korea ceasing its efforts to enrich uranium, to suspend its nuclear and missile tests, and to provide access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Cho’s comments were a response to the North’s proposal for talks by demanding even stricter denuclearization measures.

Following this, Cho met with Wu Dawei, China’s envoy to the six-party talks and the country’s special representative for North Korea policy, in Beijing on Feb. 21 to discuss the North Korean nuclear weapons issue.

Following North Korea’s repeated appeals for dialogue, South Korea, the US, China, and Japan all members of the six-party talks are searching for the appropriate conditions that will permit the talks to resume. The winds of change seem to be driven by the fact that North Korea decided that it stands to gain nothing from further provocations around the same time that the US and other countries decided that they can no longer ignore the unstable situation on the Korean peninsula. This trend is expected to become more concrete after the summit between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week and the Asian Regional Forum (ARF), which will be held at the beginning of August.

But great obstacles remain before talks actually take place. First of all, there is a great divide between the conditions and agenda of talks proposed by Pyongyang and Washington. The North refuses to accept unilateral denuclearization, insisting that the agenda for the talks must include denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula. The argument goes that North Korea cannot allow itself to be the only country to lay down its weapons when it is facing the security threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea.

The comments made by Sin Son-ho, North Korean ambassador to the UN, in a press conference on June 21 - at which he called for the dissolution of the UN military command in South Korea and emphasized that “the ultimate objective of denuclearization applies to both North and South Korea,” - can be understood in this context.

In response to this, the US is calling for North Korea to first demonstrate its good faith as a prerequisite for talks between Pyongyang and Washington. Patrick Ventrell, deputy spokesperson for the US Department of State, also brushed aside Sin’s appeal, stating, “the UN command is something that’s been there [in Korea] for many years and will continue to be” and that “our sanctions will continue.”

North Korea’s statements could be a bargaining ploy to extract concessions from their counterparts by making their strongest demands ahead of the talks. In other words, the North may be raising the stakes in order to negotiate from an advantageous position once the actual talks begin.

“Ultimately, the question is how we propose a way to resolve North Korean concerns about security within the framework of talks about denuclearization,” said a South Korean senior government official on condition of anonymity.

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