WASHINGTON: The Bush administration sought this week to lower expectations for next week's six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis, suggesting that officials are eager to stick to the diplomatic track - no matter how slow - during this election year.
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters in advance of the meeting, set to start on Wednesday in Beijing, said "this needs to be seen as a step in a process, that the success or failure will be judged at a later point in the process when we have results." He added that his expectations are "neither high nor low" but that "if the talks are less than completely successful, we'll continue to try to work along that line."
The Bush administration has reiterated a tough line in advance of the talks, noting that Pyongyang must agree to an irreversible and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear programmes and weapons. While North Korea has offered to freeze a plutonium facility, US officials have also said that North Korea must fully disclose and dismantle a separate programme, identified by US intelligence, to produce highly enriched uranium.
Some US officials have suggested that they would consider pulling out of the talks if North Korea continues to insist it has no such programme, but the State Department official said the US delegation would keep probing for a possible opening to a solution. "There's a great deal of patience and resolve, I think, certainly on our side," he said.
Another US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that a decision has been made at the highest levels that "the criteria for success is that the North Koreans don't walk out." He said officials are hoping at best to win North Korea's agreement to hold regular meetings - instead of talks that take place only after months of laborious negotiations. This option could take the form of lower-level "working groups," which would at least provide the illusion of continued progress. But North Korea has not yet accepted the proposal, which was transmitted to Pyongyang via Chinese diplomats.
"The motto is 'Do no harm,'" the official said. "This is a placeholder to get us through the election."
Asian officials say North Korea appears to have little incentive to strike an agreement this year as long as there is a chance President Bush could be ousted in the election.
South Korea, Russia and Japan are participating in the talks. The Chinese have left the schedule open, but most officials not do not expect the talks to last longer than three days. -Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.
