WASHINGTON: If China nudges the United States and North Korea into new talks, as now seems possible, that one step toward a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis could soon hit a brick wall.
Getting to the negotiating table is one thing. Having something to say that might engage the other side is another. US officials plan to reiterate the strict position they have stuck with since last year.
“If there is another round of talks our position will be what it’s been since last summer,” a senior US official said.
“If there is complete transformation in the way North Korea does business on nuclear, biological, chemical and ballistic missile programmes, disposition of conventional forces and human rights, then we’d be prepared to consider a completely new relationship. That’s it. Bold initiative,” he said.
Although it may be embellished somewhat, the US “position will be that they (North Koreans) have to completely, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle their nuclear weapons programme — No change” from before, he added.
President George W. Bush has said he would offer poor, isolated North Korea a “bold approach” to new economic and political relations if it abandoned its nuclear programmes.
But he has not spelled out exactly what benefits Pyongyang could hope to gain from engagement with Washington and has insisted the communist leadership — which Bush and top aides consider untrustworthy — act first.
Critics complain that despite a rhetorical commitment to a diplomatic resolution, Bush never seriously pursued negotiations to test what it would take to get a deal.
Instead, he increasingly has sought to squeeze Pyongyang, including urging states to reduce aid and organizing an international crackdown on North Korean trafficking in weapons, illegal drugs and counterfeit currency.
Bush’s perceived lack of urgency toward negotiations has alarmed some experts who fear the North is close to producing half a dozen nuclear arms on top of one or two existing bombs.
But US officials, determined to avoid North Korean “blackmail,” wax confident their decision to hang tough is maddening for Pyongyang and will force it to capitulate.
Since a China-hosted three-way meeting in Beijing in April ended inconclusively, the public focus has been on the format of any next round. The United States pushed a multilateral structure involving allies South Korea and Japan, while the North wanted talks only with the Americans.
Significantly, China, the North’s main source of food and energy, has assumed an increasingly significant role and seems to have won both countries’ agreement for another US-North Korea-China round, probably in August.
WASHINGTON TALKS: A Chinese envoy was to hold talks in Washington on Friday to discuss these developments.
But the Bush administration has been divided internally over whether and in what form to respond to a North Korean negotiating proposal put forward at the April meeting.
According to US sources, Pyongyang requested a US non-aggression pledge, diplomatic normalization, economic integration with South Korea and Japan, compensation for delays in building two nuclear power reactors and completion of the reactor project, which the Bush team would like to scuttle.
In return, Pyongyang said it would stop making nuclear weapons, submit to weapons verification and eventually dismantle all nuclear facilities, the officials said.
There is broad feeling in Washington that the North’s proposal is deeply flawed. Hence, there are no plans to respond to the North’s ideas point by point, officials said.
Some officials, who believe negotiations offer the only alternative to conflict, have urged a formal US response to outline for Pyongyang a concrete way forward out of the nuclear morass.
But others remain hostile to any deal with a government Bush branded part of the “axis of evil” with Iraq and Iran.
They support more talks only to “show appreciation” for China’s involvement and to prove to the world that Pyongyang is intent on retaining nuclear capability.
The administration debate is not so much over what a deal might look like but rather “whether one gets in bed with North Korea at all,” a diplomat who deals with North Korea said.
Some congressional sources believe the administration’s position is not yet fixed and could change, depending on what China has to say and the North does.
“The Chinese obviously think they have something (from the North) that they think they can work with,” one diplomat said.—Reuters
