A second round of six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis long expected to take place this month in Beijing may be delayed, but that is likely to be only a hiccup in a process likely to last many months.
Prevarication and postponement have long been favored North Korean tactics and do not raise the risks or mean a deal is unreachable to ensure the heavily armed peninsula is free of nuclear weapons, analysts said.
"I think the North Koreans understand they have to cut a deal at the end of the day," said Ralph Cossa, head of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank in Hawaii.
"Ultimately, they are just tough negotiators," he said.
US officials in Washington said on Tuesday the planning for a second round of six-party talks had hit a snag and discussions may take place next month or February instead of the middle of this month as expected.
North Korea is reluctant to agree to a US demand for an "effective and irreversible verification regime," which experts have said would open the reclusive Stalinist state up to unprecedented intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Each side is nervous about trusting the other. Thus both the US and North Korea are eager to try to ensure the other four parties in the talks -- South Korea, Japan, Russia and host China -- see and adhere to their point of view.
"There are two main issues -- one is verification and the second is resolving the commitment problem," said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.
"Basically it's trust. If you can't trust the other side, or believe it will fulfil its commitment, you won't sign," he said. "Neither side trusts the other so you have a mirror image."
The two protagonists know that when they finally begin talks -- and analysts say they have little doubt that talks will be held at some point -- each is going to have to give ground. The question is not whether each makes concessions, but what those concessions will be.
"Everyone knows the North Koreans are going to get rewarded for their bad behavior, the question is whether this is going to be in advance or down the road," Cossa said.
And who will do the rewarding? It is unlikely to be the US. South Korean rewards may not be acceptable to its northern half and that leaves China as the most likely donor.
Thus, if talks do not take place this month, that does not mean anyone has walked away from the negotiating table.
It is more likely to indicate that the US is still striving to establish a consensus stand among its friends and allies while North Korea is holding out for a more lucrative offer from China before pulling a chair up to the table.
"They are still holding out for as much as they can to come to the meeting," Cossa said.
GAPS AND WEDGES
And the US is holding out for a strong stand among its allies, knowing that complete checks on North Korea's nuclear program are impossible and that others at the negotiating table might well satisfy themselves with somethhing less than complete verification.
North Korea would seize on any gap among the other five to use its long-time policy of driving a wedge between allies.
Pyongyang will have a chance to search for those gaps as negotiators for South Korea and Japan meet in Washington this week. They trio are expected to put forward a joint proposed text that the US has not yet seen, one US official said.
Washington wants a statement at least to include agreement on the principle of verification, a complex system of inspections and monitoring that would give the world reasonable confidence that Pyongyang has halted its plutonium and uranium programs.
Wringing security assurances out of the US is a key concern for North Korea. North Korea may be eager to put off talks in hopes of gaining more and of assessing whether US President George W. Bush, who famously grouped North Korea in an "axis of evil" with Iran and pre-war Iraq, is likely to win re-election next year.
Cossa said it was likely Pyongyang was working according to a timetable under which it did not envisage talks before July or August when a clearer picture of Bush's elections chances would have emerged.
"While we profess not to have regime change as an objective, they see regime change as a possible solution," he said.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations