U.S. Holds Direct Talks in North Korea

By NORIMITSU ONISHI and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 21, 2007

TOKYO, June 21 ― The United States’ chief nuclear negotiator began a surprise two-day visit to North Korea today, saying he wanted to speed up six-nation talks aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program.

In the first visit to Pyongyang by a senior American official in nearly five years, the envoy, Christopher R. Hill, was scheduled to meet senior North Korean officials, including his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, for one-on-one talks.

Mr. Hill was scheduled to spend the night in the North Korean capital before leaving on Friday.

Television footage showed Mr. Hill being greeted at Pyongyang’s airport by Ri Gun, the North’s deputy nuclear negotiator.

“We want to get the six-party process moving,” Mr. Hill said. “We hope that we can make up for some of the time that we lost this spring, and so I’m looking forward to good discussions about that.”

Mr. Hill’s trip was organized in such secrecy and so suddenly that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice alerted American allies, Japan and South Korea, just prior to his departure from Tokyo, where he had been visiting. Mr. Hill flew from Japan to South Korea, and then to Pyongyang aboard a small jet.

“We’re all waiting for you,” Mr. Ri told Mr. Hill, as the two men could be seen smiling and chatting at the airport.

Mr. Hill said that he received the invitation on Monday, adding, “We had to work fast to find an airplane.”

Mr. Hill’s trip came just hours after the United States found a way to return to the North roughly $25 million in funds that were frozen for several years. The United States had frozen the money, saying it came from counterfeiting and trade in missiles and nuclear equipment.

It took months for Washington to clear obstacles preventing the money’s return, a move that hawks in the administration had argued was deeply mistaken.

Now Mr. Hill can pursue the next items on his agenda: Persuading North Korea to fulfill a commitment it made in February to slow down its main nuclear reactor, whose spent fuel has enabled the country to manufacture plutonium and gain the fuel for eight or more nuclear weapons, according to public American intelligence estimates.

In the next step, the North is supposed to provide the United States and the other participants in the six-party negotiations on the issue ― Japan, South Korea, Russia and China ― with a detailed list of all of its nuclear programs and facilities.

The Bush administration is also considering authorizing Mr. Hill to offer to buy from the North Koreans nuclear equipment that they are believed to have purchased several years ago from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer. That equipment could conceivably give the North a second path to building a bomb, by enriching uranium.

But American officials do not know whether the North ever learned the secrets of enrichment, or where enrichment facilities might be. So far, the North has denied that it possesses the equipment.

“This is critical to the administration’s plan,” one senior official involved in the North Korea strategy said, “because unless they get their hands on this stuff, there is no way we can argue that we’ve stopped the North from making more nukes.”

But it was unclear whether Mr. Hill was prepared to make the offer to the North now, or what form it would take. While Washington or its allies could offer cash for the equipment, they might also promise future deliveries of nuclear fuel to power the civilian nuclear reactors the North insists it needs.

Mr. Hill’s trip was organized in such secrecy that he apparently did not convey his plans to top Japanese officials, whom he visited Wednesday in Tokyo. Japan has refused to join the disarmament deal that North Korea signed in February. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said Japan will only consider joining the deal after resolution of the cases of about a dozen Japanese said to have been abducted by North Korea.

In confirming reports of Mr. Hill’s trip on Wednesday night ― after sidestepping questions during the day to give Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice time to alert the Japanese and other American allies ― the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, cast the trip as “part of the consultations” with all of the countries in the North Korea talks, trying to make it sound routine.

But for years the administration has refused to engage one on one with the North Koreans.

Ms. Rice had to maneuver around Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said in February, to reach the deal that gives the North hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel oil in return for step-by-step disablement of its facilities. It was exactly the kind of grand bargain the administration had avoided for years, as Mr. Cheney and others argued that the United States should not prolong the life of the North Korean government of Kim Jong-il, but rather seek ways to speed its demise.

“Condi knows she needs a big win here,” said a senior administration official who has dealt with her often on North Korea. “They know they are getting nowhere on Iraq, and they probably won’t get far on Iran. She needs to show that she can reduce at least one big threat.”

Late last week North Korea invited the return of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, presumably to witness the shutdown of its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

Those inspectors were thrown out of the country in late 2002, after American officials confronted the North with evidence that it had sought to cheat on a previous nuclear accord by purchasing from Dr. Khan the centrifuges to enrich uranium. Under the first phase of the accord reached in February, North Korea agreed to shut down the reactor after its frozen funds were returned.

In addition, South Korea will deliver 50,000 tons of fuel oil to the energy-starved North after the shutdown is confirmed. Mr. Hill said in Tokyo that the next round of talks should focus on how to carry out the February agreement’s second phase: declaring where the North has hidden decades of secret work, on the way to dismantling it. That is expected to prove even more difficult; several American officials say they did not believe the North would ever give up all of its nuclear program.

The last time an American delegation traveled to Pyongyang to negotiate, it ended badly. Mr. Hill’s predecessor, James Kelly, went to Pyongyang in 2002 and opened the talks by telling the North Koreans that the Untied States had evidence they had purchased centrifuges and other equipment, and were breaking a 1994 accord. The Americans said the North first confirmed it had obtained the equipment, then later denied it.

That started a confrontation that resulted in a cutoff of American fuel oil supplies to the North. In retaliation, the North ejected the international inspectors and moved its nuclear fuel for what it said was conversion into plutonium. That began a downward spiral of events, culminating in North Korea’s test of a nuclear device last October.

Now, some Korea experts say the confrontation was avoidable. But President Bush was focused on Iraq, and his former aides say he was convinced that once Saddam Hussein fell, the North would be intimidated into giving up its weapons.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Norimitsu Onishi from Tokyo.

U.S. Holds Direct Talks in North Korea - New York Times

北朝鮮から遠心分離機買い取りを検討と米紙

　２１日付の米紙ニューヨーク・タイムズは、北朝鮮が保有するとみられる遠心分離機などの核関連機器について、米政府が６カ国協議首席代表のヒル国務次官補に対し、北朝鮮側に買い取り提案を行うことを許可する選択肢を検討していると報じた。

　北朝鮮は「核の闇市場」を構築したパキスタンの科学者カーン博士から関連機器を購入、ウラン濃縮型核開発を進めた疑いがある。ヒル氏が今回の訪朝で北朝鮮に買い取りを打診する用意があるかどうかは不明という。

　同紙はまた、１９日から日本に滞在していたヒル氏が日本側に訪朝計画を事前に伝えていなかったとの見方を報道。電撃訪朝の背景として、チェイニー副大統領ら強硬派を迂回（うかい）して北朝鮮との対話に踏み切ったライス米国務長官が、外交成果を誇示する必要性に迫られている、とのブッシュ政権高官の発言を伝えた。（共同）

(2007/06/21 21:49)

北朝鮮から遠心分離機買い取りを検討と米紙｜米国｜国際｜Sankei WEB

電撃初訪朝は攻めか焦りか ヒル米次官補

北朝鮮の核問題をめぐる６カ国協議の米首席代表を務めるクリストファー・ロバート・ヒル（Ｃｈｒｉｓｔｏｐｈｅｒ　Ｒｏｂｅｒｔ　Ｈｉｌｌ）国務次官補が２１日午前、北朝鮮の平壌に向け日本を出発、午後０時半（日本と時差なし）ごろ、到着した。２２日昼までの滞在中、金桂寛（キム・ゲグァン）外務次官ら北朝鮮側の政府高官と会談する予定。６カ国協議筋によると、８月にマニラで６カ国の外相会合を開き、今後の北朝鮮の核放棄に向けた取り組みを盛り込んだ共同声明を発表するための事前協議が目的という。

■味方も欺く？

　まさに、電撃訪問だった。
　ヒル次官補は、１５日からモンゴル、中国、韓国、日本を歴訪し、「２１日にはワシントンに戻らなければならない」と強調してきた。２０日午前になって、日本出国の１日延期を公表したものの、夜には神宮球場へプロ野球観戦に出かける“余裕”ぶりをみせていた。
　ところが、２１日午前７時すぎ、滞在していた都内のホテルを出発したヒル次官補は、成田空港には向かわず米軍横田基地へ。軍用機に乗り、韓国経由で北朝鮮へ飛び立った。
　ＡＰ通信によると、平壌に到着したヒル次官補は、「６カ国協議のプロセスを継続し、遅れた時間を取り戻したい」と語った。滞在中には金正日（キム・ジョンイル）総書記の側近で北朝鮮外交の中心的存在の姜錫柱（カン・ソクジュ）第１外務次官とも会うとみられる。２２日午後にソウル、東京と移動し、日韓両政府に協議結果を報告する。

■「６カ国」地ならし

　米国としては６カ国による協議を再開し、８月上旬にマニラで開催される東南アジア諸国連合（ＡＳＥＡＮ）地域フォーラム（ＡＲＦ）の場で、外相会合を開催する運びにしたいとのねらいがある。
　ただ、ヒル次官補は北朝鮮による核施設の稼働停止・封印という初期段階措置の履行後ではなく、その前に訪朝した。ヒル次官補の「焦りの表れ」（６カ国協議筋）ともいえ、今後の交渉で北朝鮮に主導権を握られる懸念もある。
　ちなみに、米政府高官の訪朝は、２００２年１０月のケリー国務次官補（当時）以来。ケリー次官補の訪朝では、米側は訪朝後に北朝鮮がウラン濃縮計画の存在を認めたと公表、その後の核危機のきっかけとなった。
　ヒル次官補の訪朝に先立ち、コンドリーザ・ライス米国務長官が２１日午前、麻生太郎（あそう・たろう）外相に電話した。麻生外相は、（１）日本は日朝平壌宣言にのっとり日朝国交正常化を実現する用意がある（２）北朝鮮が拉致問題を含む日朝関係に正面から取り組むことを期待している－を北朝鮮に伝えるよう要請。ライス長官は「ヒル氏は、間違いなく日朝関係についても提起する」と確約した。日本側には、拉致問題が置き去りにされかねないことへの戸惑いが見え隠れする。

　【クリストファー・ヒル米国務次官補（東アジア・太平洋担当）】　１９５２年生まれ。米メーン州ブランズウイックのボードイン大卒。国務省に入省後はベオグラード、ワルシャワ、ソウルなどで勤務。駐マケドニア大使、国家安全保障会議の南東欧州部の上級部長などを経て、２０００年７月から０４年７月まで駐ポーランド大使。８月駐韓国大使に就任。０５年２月に６カ国協議の首席代表に任命され、４月から現職。（共同）

電撃初訪朝は攻めか焦りか　ヒル米次官補-世界からのニュース:イザ！