hankyoreh

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed his approval for the country to launch its long-range Kwangmyongsong 4 rocket

At the end of last year, the US and North Korea secretly discussed a North Korean proposal for a peace treaty, the Wall Street Journal reported. These “exploratory talks,” as this discussion might be called, reportedly broke down when the two sides refused to budge on the issue of denuclearization.

“To be clear, it was the North Koreans who proposed discussing a peace treaty,” said US State Department John Kirby on Feb. 21 in response to a request by the Hankyoreh for confirmation on the Wall Street Journal’s report about the secret peace talks between North Korea and the US. “We carefully considered their proposal, and made clear that denuclearization had to be part of any such discussion,” Kirby said.

“Our response to the North Korean proposal was consistent with our longstanding focus on denuclearization,” Kirby said, adding that North Korea had rejected the counterproposal.

Earlier on Monday, the Wall Street Journal had reported that the US and North Korea had agreed to discuss a peace treaty on the Korea Peninsula several days before North Korea carried out its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. According to the Wall Street Journal, the fact that the US had held the discussions meant that it had dropped its requirement for North Korea to first move toward denuclearization.

But while the Wall Street Journal’s report states that the secret discussion between North Korea and the US took place a few days before the nuclear test, it is more likely that it occurred in Nov. 2015. A diplomatic source in Washington, D.C said that it happened before December.

On Oct. 1, 2015, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong proposed converting the armistice to a peace treaty during his keynote address at the UN Headquarters in New York City. The secret discussion involved North Korea’s UN delegates explaining Ri’s remarks to the US.

The Wall Street Journal described the US agreement to North Korea’s proposal for dialogue as an abandonment of the precondition that North Korea must take first take steps toward denuclearization, but this appears to result from a confusion of the concepts of exploratory dialogue and the Six-Party Talks.

While the US has said that the Six-Party Talks cannot resume until North Korea starts moving toward denuclearization through actions, not words, it has also said that there are no preconditions on exploratory dialogue with North Korea, though such dialogue must be focused on denuclearization.

Given the fact that the US told North Korea in the secret talks that denuclearization must be a part of peace talks, some believe this means that, once the mood for sanctions against North Korea has passed, the US government might accept Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s proposal to hold simultaneous peace talks and denuclearization negotiations.

For the moment, though, the chances of this look slim. First, in official briefings thus far, the US position has not changed even once. Second, there is no evidence that the US is seriously considering North Korea‘s proposal. Third, it is obvious that the South Korean government would be stubbornly opposed to it.

If anything, the fact that this report was released after Wang Yi made his proposal makes it look suspiciously like a US attempt at media manipulation. By showing that the US made an effort but North Korea is opposed to discussing denuclearization, the US may have wanted it to seem that it is impossible to even talk about peace talks.

“In telephone conversations and a recent summit, South Korea and the US have been dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue with firm resolve as a paramount priority,” a senior official with South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said when asked about this. “We are maintaining the same position that, in any dialogue with North Korea, denuclearization must come first. The US’s standard position on the issue of a peace treaty remains unchanged.”

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent and Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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