After three years of diplomatic deadlock, the administration of US President Barack Obama says it is open to holding preliminary talks with North Korea to probe its intentions and assess the prospects of ridding the country of nuclear weapons.
A senior South Korean envoy traveled to Washington and Beijing this past week, as nations involved in long-stalled aid-for-disarmament negotiations consider their diplomatic options.
Tensions have eased a little on the Korean Peninsula following the completion of annual US-South Korean military drills.
However, it remains unclear if a diplomatic overture to North Korea is to even get to first base, as the Asian nation appears intent on retaining its nuclear weapons. US officials do not believe the North has demonstrated a serious interest in re-engaging on the issue, and a spokesman at the North Korean diplomatic mission at the UN declined to comment on the question of re-engagement.
Obama has broken the ice with several other long-standing adversaries, like Iran, Cuba and Myanmar.
In the case of Iran, the US has joined with other world powers in negotiating a framework agreement to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
North Korea has gone far beyond that point. The North conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, and despite international sanctions intended to prevent Pyongyang from obtaining sensitive technology and starve it of funds, US-based experts are forecasting that it could increase its nuclear arsenal from at least 10 weapons today to between 20 and 100 weapons by 2020.
That is a powerful incentive to give diplomacy another shot, but there is a gulf between North Korea’s desire to be recognized as a nuclear power, and the sworn aim of the negotiating process that China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US say they want to revive: denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
A previous public US attempt to negotiate a nuclear freeze and get the six-party process restarted collapsed in 2012 after the North launched a long-range rocket. North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013, and has test-fired numerous shorter-range missile since then.
The US quietly proposed a meeting with North Korea in January, before the recent US-South Korea military exercises. However, the two sides failed to agree on who could meet and where.
China, North Korea’s traditional benefactor, has constantly pushed for resumption of dialogue, and South Korean Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Hwang Joon-kook, who met separately with his US and Chinese counterparts this week, made a very public overture, saying all five parties were ready to have talks to probe North Korea’s intentions.
“We want to meet with the North first without any conditions to determine whether it has real commitment [toward denuclearization],” he said in Beijing on Thursday.
The US is willing to be flexible about a format for “serious dialogue” with North Korea on denuclearization, a senior US official said. The official was not authorized to be named and requested anonymity to discuss US-North Korea policy.
One possible venue could be the North East Asia Cooperation Dialogue, an annual conference of officials and experts organized by the University of California. It is being cohosted this year by the Japanese government, and is to be held in Tokyo at the end of this month.
Japan has invited North Korea.
Any talks would need to address thorny issues, including conditions under which the six-party negotiations could resume after a gap of seven years. However, the atmospherics remain poor, and US-South Korean military drills are to restart in August, which could stoke up tensions again.
In January, the US imposed new sanctions after an alleged North Korean hacking attack of Sony Pictures, and Obama angered Pyongyang soon after when he said in an interview that an isolated, authoritarian regime like North Korea’s would ultimately collapse.
US support for a UN commission of inquiry that found North Korea had committed crimes against humanity has also strained relations. At the UN last week, an event chaired by US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power on North Korea’s human rights record turned into chaos, as North Korean diplomats insisted on reading a statement of protest, and then stormed out amid shouts from North Korean defectors.
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