BEIJING: North Korea’s abrupt walkout on nuclear talks over frozen funds should ring alarm bells about the myriad of other pitfalls that await the disarmament process, analysts said on Friday.
Under a six-nation accord signed last month, North Korea has just three weeks to close its main Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allow United Nations’ atomic inspectors back into the country as first steps towards disarmament.
China and the United States have insisted the decision by the Stalinist regime to abandon negotiations in Beijing on Thursday should not place the deadline in doubt and that the North remains committed to disarming.
Pyongyang will slip back into disarmament mode once the $25 million in North Korean funds, frozen since 2005 in a Macau bank due to US accusations of money laundering and counterfeiting, is returned, they have argued.
The United States and China, which have different but equally strong reasons for seeing the disarmament process succeed, have said the delay in returning the money is only due to technical problems.
But Yun Duk-Min, from the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security, a research arm of South Korea’s foreign ministry, was one of a number of North Korea watchers who expressed less confidence on Friday about the short and long-term prospects for disarmament.
“It is hard to predict whether the April 14 deadline will be met or not,” Yun said in reference to the date that North Korea is required under the six-nation accord to shut down Yongbyon and welcome back UN inspectors.
“This episode proves again that North Korea is not an easy partner to negotiate with. It shows what a tough road ahead there is before North Korea is fully disarmed.” One fundamental obstacle is the lack of trust between North Korea and the other parties in the six-nation process, particularly the United States but even China, Pyongyang’s long-time ally.
North Korea, which is one of the most politically isolated nations in the world, refused to negotiate in the six-party forum this week even after being reassured by China that the money would be transferred.
“It (North Korea’s walk-out) testifies to a wall of distrust between North Korea and the other countries,” a South Korean official involved in the talks but who did not want to be named said on Thursday.
Chief US envoy Christopher Hill said after the talks broke up that the incident highlighted the degree of North Korea’s isolation.
“It has been difficult to return money to them even when everyone wants to return money to them,” he said.
Hill earlier professed to not truly understanding the mindset of the North Koreans.
“The day I explain to you the North Korean thinking is the day I have been in this process too long,” he said.
The director of the Centre for Korean Peninsula Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Liu Ming, said the distrust factor was a vital part of the process that would repeatedly hold up the disarmament process in the months and years to come.“The money transfer is only one of those complicated knots in the six-party talks,” Liu said, pointing to bigger future obstacles such as North Korean demands to be removed from a US terrorist listing and for its companies to be allowed to trade with the United States.
“They are likely to be hard nuts to crack in the long-term future of the six-party talks.”
—AFP