Korea nuke talks: Optimism is in the air

By Donald Kirk

SEOUL - Nobody wants to appear overly upbeat about the six-party talks going on in Beijing on North Korea's nukes. Still, the impression shared by many observers, as the talks resumed on Thursday, was that this time may be different from the others, including the last round in December that failed to go beyond the usual rhetoric before ending to universal expressions of "disappointment".

"It's clear there's a real note of optimism in the air," said Edward

Reed, Korea representative of the Asia Foundation. "That has not preceded previous sessions. It leads one to think something has been agreed to."

Indeed, the chief US and South Korean envoys to the talks both hinted that the current round may result in a preliminary agreement - the first substantive step in a long process that should end, ideally, with North Korea abandoning its nuclear-weapons program in exchange for vast amounts of economic and energy aid.

Christopher Hill, the US envoy, stopping off first in Seoul and then in Tokyo on his way to Beijing, let it be known that he and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, had actually reached an agreement in one-on-one talks last month in Berlin. After getting to Beijing he denied that he had signed anything, but the implication was clear: those bilateral meetings, which he characterized as "discussions", should be seen as setting the stage for the six-party "negotiations" hosted by China.

As the talks opened, the question remained whether Kim would offer - and accept - the terms set forth in Berlin. If all goes well, said Hill, the two sides may agree on "the first tranche" - an exchange of "give and take" in a "step-by-step" process that should lead to a "second and a third tranche". Kim, arriving in Beijing, said he was indeed ready to discuss "first-stage measures" but all depended on "whether the United States will give up its hostile policy" in favor of "peaceful co-existence" - a circumlocution that gave rise to as much doubt as hope.

North Korean acquiescence, in fact, hinges on long-sought US concessions, according to two Americans who talked to Kim Kye-gwan in Pyongyang in the run-up to the six-party talks. David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, and Joel Wit, a former State Department official who has focused for years on the nuclear issue, told reporters that North Korea would insist both on an end to financial sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Department and agreement right away on the supply of oil or electricity to help meet its energy needs. Those were just the most immediate of a number of issues that might form the crux of negotiations - this week and later.

Some observers, though, were troubled by the role assumed by Albright and Wit as message-bearers. Ralph Cossa, of the Honolulu office of the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington, observed that attempt to use Americans "to pre-negotiate" is "a familiar tactic" but seemed surprised that Albright and Wit should have played along.
Their visit would be understandable "if talks had been in a prolonged stalemate period", said Cossa, but to report on North Korea's demands "a day or two before sensitive negotiations" was "the height of irresponsibility". North Korea's demands, he said, were "not new" - though "seldom so conveniently packaged right before formal negotiations are to resume".

Moreover, Cossa observed, North Korea has ignored the whole issue of its program to produce highly enriched uranium, the reason for the breakdown in late 2002 of the 1994 Geneva agreement on the nuclear issue. Without acknowledgement by Pyongyang of its "clandestine enrichment program", said Cossa, "prospects for any real progress are slim".

In fact, there may not be any progress at all if the Americans hold fast against North Korea's insistence on an end to the order barring any financial institution from doing business in the US, or with a US firm, from dealing with Banco Delta Asia in Macau, through which North Korea purportedly channeled counterfeit US$100 bills printed on a Swiss-made press in Pyongyang. Macau authorities promptly froze $24 million in North Korean assets in Banco Delta Asia, while North Korea made the ban the reason for refusing to return to talks for more than a year until last December.

One face-saving way out of the impasse, said Ryoo Gil-jae, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, may be for North Korea to admit that "some people acted illegally but are not related to North Korean authorities" - and to promise "nomore illegal actions". North Korea has hinted before at that way out of the dilemma, but the Americans may now be open to considering a solution that saves face for all sides if they can keep the talks going and move on.

An understanding on Banco Delta Asia, according to this scenario, may lead to preliminary agreement on the basic issue of what to do about the nukes. "If you have a reasonable expectationlevel, then we can get what we want," said Chun Bong-geum, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, affiliated with the South Korean Foreign Ministry. "We know what the difficulties are."

Chun expects a freeze of the Yongbyon complex to include the shutdown of the 5-megawatt reactor and the reprocessing facility where North Korea has been making plutonium for nuclear warheads for the past four years. The US Central Intelligence Agency estimates that North Korea has fabricated at least six and possibly a dozen warheads at Yongbyon, including the one that it exploded in its first underground test on October 9. In return for closing operations there, Chun predicted the US will work out a deal under which the US and others resume shipping heavy fuel oil for the first time since late 2002.

North Korea also is demanding the light-water nuclear reactors as promised in 1994 in Geneva, for which South Korea's Korea Electric Power Corp was to do most of the work at a cost of $5 billion. The Geneva agreement fell apart when Hill's predecessor, James Kelly, in talks in Pyongyang in October 2002 claimed that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju had acknowledged the program for building warheads with highly enriched uranium - an admission that Kang has repeatedly denied.

In any case, Chun In-young, political-science professor at Seoul National University, doubts the US side is ready to agree on a new deal for those reactors. The underground nuclear test in October is widely believed to have exploded Pyongyang's chances for getting those reactors until North Korean has gotten rid of its nukes - something that's not at all likely in the near future.

Nor is the US expected to agree to other North Korean demands, including removal from the State Department's list of terrorist states or opening of diplomatic relations, though President George W Bush might offer another assurance that the US will not stage the "preemptive" strike that North Korean rhetoric often cites as an integral aspect of Washington's game plan. So tendentious are all these issues that some observers believe the talking will dribble on until after the US presidential election next year - on the assumption that a Democrat wins and is ready for serious concessions.

Still, Chun In-young seemed fairly confident "they will come out with some agreement", possibly on oil shipments. The US "is in a hurry to make some progress while stuck in Iraq", he said, while "North Korea will gradually back off" from impossible demands.

Forecasts of even a modest deal are generally accompanied by reminders of all the difficulties encountered in previous talks. "Don't expect a big breakthrough," Chun warned. "I'm afraid to be optimistic," said Reed at the Asia Foundation. "We've been burned too many times."

The question, said Reed, is, "Will they get to the point of signing a significant step forward, or will North Korea sense American weakness and hold out for more?" Still, he said, "I don't see any way forward except to keep going step by step."

Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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