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Daniel Russel

A US government official said that the conditions for resuming the Six Party Talks are for North Korea to freeze all of its nuclear activity and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The remarks appear to come in response to a statement by the spokesperson of North Korea’s National Defense Commission on Apr. 3 that “the fundamental solution is not rash military pressure but rather setting up negotiations.”

“That way forward isn’t hard to imagine. It starts with North Korea freezing all its nuclear activities, like Iran did while it negotiated. And it starts with a credible declaration of the North’s past activities and IAEA inspection of its nuclear sites as a first step,” said Daniel Russel, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Russel made the remarks on Apr. 4 during a debate organized by the Institute for Corean-American Studies (ICAS).

“Meeting basic international obligations is not a lot to ask. Then we’d resume work where the Six-Party talks left off,” Russel continued. “All of North Korea’s stated concerns can be dealt with on the basis of that agreement.”

Russel’s remarks cut both ways. While the conditions that he described for resuming the Six Party Talks do reiterate the US‘s standard position, they are significant in the sense that they offer a specific roadmap to dialogue during a time of sanctions.

But given that North Korea continues to insist that denuclearization is not up for debate, it is difficult to see the remarks as a serious attempt to reach a compromise.

With both Pyongyang and Washington refusing to budge, North Korean military experts William Mugford and Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., published an article on 38 North, a North Korean affairs website, on Apr. 4 in which they reported the detection of suspicious activities at the nuclear testing facility at Yongbyon, which the North uses to extract plutonium for the production of nuclear devices.

“During the past five weeks, exhaust plumes on two, possibly three, occasions were observed at the Radiochemical Laboratory’s Thermal Plant,” the two experts said. These unusual plumes, they speculated, may indicate “that some significant activity is being undertaken, or will be in the near future. Whether that activity will be additional separation of plutonium for nuclear weapons remains unclear.”

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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