hankyoreh

The six-party talks resume in Beijing on July 10, approximately nine months since the sixth round of six-party talks in early October of last year. Being that the talks start up again right after North Korea submitted its declaration, and with the United States having begun removing Pyongyang from its list of terror-sponsoring states, one hopes these new negotiations set a new cornerstone for things to come.

The focus of this month’s talks will be assessing the contents of Pyongyang’s declaration and coming up with a verification regime. Effective verification will require guarantees on access to nuclear facilities, the taking of samples, and interviews with nuclear officials. It would be best to have the role and cost of verification shared by the countries involved in the six-party talks, which would thereby make all of them more responsible for the whole process. The procedures for delisting Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism could fall apart and derail the six-party process as a whole if there is not a complete verification regime in place by around the 10th of next month. Pyongyang should cooperate proactively, as it said on numerous occasions that it would.

No less important than verification will be the start of the discussion on the third phase of the denuclearization process. The second phase will essentially come to a close when the North’s declaration is assessed and the United States removes it from its list of terrorist states, but there has, as of yet, been close to no talk about how to proceed into the third phase, which is supposed to be about the North’s complete denuclearization and the simultaneous establishment of relations between Pyongyang and Tokyo and Pyongyang and Washington and the establishment of a peace regime for the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. In other words, this is the phase where the six-party talks bear fruit, which is what makes figuring out how the talks will proceed, and how they will be sustained and with what kind of momentum, very important. The talks this week need to lay the foundation for moving forward.

A meeting between the foreign ministers of each of the six nations would contribute significantly to building momentum for the six-party talks. It could also become a way to enter the third phase smoothly. Having the meeting as soon as possible would be best. With the United States presidential election coming just months from now, holding the foreign ministers’ meeting next month, at the latest, would be most effective.

Seoul, for its part, needs to do all it can to make sure it plays a leading role in the talks this week. South Korea has lost a lot of standing in the six-party talks. Seoul has lost its leverage with the North because of poor inter-Korean relations right now, and obsessing with strengthening the U.S.-Korea alliance has hurt Korea’s bargaining power with the United States and China. These talks need to be the time when that is turned around, which makes planning with long-term vision and persistent determination essential. Naturally, a creative spirit that knows how to fuse different positions will have to be the basis of that.

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