Glimmer of hope in N. Korea

The bombs are bursting in Baghdad, but across the globe in North Korea there is a glimmer of hope.

After two months of dragging its feet, the North Korean regime told a visiting Chinese leader last week that it would resume six-party negotiations that could lead to a peaceful end to its nuclear weapons program.

The breakthrough came after President Bush told reporters during his recent visit to Asia that he is willing to put into writing his verbal pledge not to attack North Korea. The president refused to budge on North Korea’s demand for a formal non-aggression treaty but he suggested the United States could join a regional security guarantee that would include Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.

Talks will likely resume in December. Welcome as this is, there should be no illusion about how wide the gap still is between the two sides. Contrary to some press reports, the Pyongyang regime’s stance is completely unchanged — it has simply been dragged to the table one more time by its Chinese allies.

Press reports about a shift in the Bush administration’s position are equally misleading. The only change is that the president put his personal signature on an approach that had been articulated privately by the State Department.

“In reality, thus far neither party has moved an inch,” comments the Asia Foundation’s Scott Snyder from Seoul. An expert on North Korean negotiating strategy, he believes Pyongyang is still playing for time, and it is far from clear that the Chinese have enough leverage to force the North Koreans to move any faster.

If you want to understand the North Koreans’ position, it helps to look at what they say. In the Oct. 26 statement expressing a readiness to consider Bush’s remarks on a written security assurance, the North Koreans repeatedly insist that there must be “simultaneous actions.”

In late August, although not widely reported, the North Koreans published a detailed report on the last round of talks held in Beijing, which makes clear what this means. The North Koreans presented a plan that calls for a series of mutual steps, each contingent on the one before.

The first step is a North Korean pledge to denuclearize in return for resumption of fuel oil supplies and construction activity on a light-water nuclear reactor, both halted last fall when the North acknowledged violating a 1994 accord to freeze its program.

The next step would be a verified freeze of the nuclear program in exchange for a non-aggression pact. The North Koreans would then halt their missile tests and exports when diplomatic relations are established with the United States and Japan. And finally, they would dismantle their nuclear facilities when the power reactor is completed.

At the August talks, according to the North Korean report and to U.S. officials, State Department negotiators put a version of a package solution on the table. It holds out the prospect of economic benefits and bilateral negotiations toward diplomatic relations once there is a verified and irreversible end to the nuclear weapons program. The United States also made reference to its readiness to discuss a regional security arrangement.

In those terms, there is a basis for continued negotiation. But the crucial sticking point is the insistence on simultaneous actions. For the United States, this amounts to rewarding North Korea for having already violated previous agreements.

The North Koreans’ view is that once they are disarmed, the U.S. will try to remove the regime by force. “They believe that this is a grand trick,” says a U.S. expert who has traveled extensively to North Korea, as recently as August.

There is ample reason to believe the North Koreans will never agree to halt their nuclear program — particularly under an agreement that requires highly intrusive inspections. President Bush seems to share that view. But since this summer, he has given the State Department some room to negotiate. The fact that things are going badly in Iraq, and that there is no real military option in Korea, has restrained hard-liners within the administration who oppose any serious negotiations.

“They are obliged to be a little more humble,” a senior administration official told me. “If anybody showed this president a way to depose (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Il without a war, I don’t doubt for a minute he’d take it. But we don’t have an easy way out.”