North Korea Talks Resume, Then Stall

Meeting for the first time in more than a year, the United States, North Korea, and four other countries failed to reach agreement on a statement of principles to guide negotiations to end the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. At the conclusion of the July 26-Aug. 7 talks, participants agreed to recess for several weeks. Talks are now set to resume the week of Sept. 12.

Despite the recess, this round of six-party talks is already widely regarded as the most successful after three previous rounds achieved little concrete progress. And North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has been allowed to proceed unfettered since December 2002 (see "CHRONOLOGY: More Than A Decade of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear Tensions"). In addition to the United States and North Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea are the other participants in the talks.

The Talks

Although the parties were unable to reach agreement, this round of talks lasted much longer than previous ones, was by all accounts “businesslike” in tone, and included an unprecedented number of U.S.-North Korean bilateral talks, a persistent North Korean demand. (See ACT, July/August 2004.)

Immediately after the recent nuclear crisis began in October 2002, the United States refused to meet with North Korea. But the Bush administration has gradually increased its bilateral contacts over time, both within the six-party talks and elsewhere, although Washington insists that it is not engaging in bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang.

China took the lead in drafting the joint statement of principles, eventually producing the version currently in dispute. No official text of the draft has been released, but according to public official sources and private accounts of the talks, it addresses several ongoing issues in U.S.-North Korean nuclear diplomacy.

The most publicized point of dispute has been whether the statement, which includes a commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, could also address North Korea’s demand that it be permitted to retain the right to civilian nuclear technology. The draft also touches on other issues including a goal to hold another round of talks shortly after the current one is concluded, an implied agreement to take reciprocal steps in implementing any ultimate settlement, the formulation of a security guarantee for North Korea, procedures for normalizing Pyongyang’s relations both with Washington and Tokyo, and a solution to North Korea’s chronic energy crisis.

During the talks, South Korea presented a new proposal that called for providing North Korea with electricity directly from the South. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill said during an Aug. 17 Washington, D.C., event that the proposed scheme would begin to increase North Korea’s electrical supply within “two and a half to three years, once we have a nuclear deal.”

Hill indicated during several public appearances that other issues will not be covered in the statement of principles. These controversial issues include the sequence of the various steps outlined in any final deal, the verification of any final denuclearization agreement, and the kind of declaration that should be expected from North Korea regarding its suspected uranium-enrichment program.

Hill indicated Aug. 17 that during a bilateral meeting the U.S. delegation presented relevant intelligence to the North Koreans regarding the program. North Korea’s uranium-enrichment effort has been a long-standing point of controversy in the six-party talks because Pyongyang has refused to admit to such a program.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gae Gwan suggested during an Aug. 14 CNN interview that North Korea would be willing to discuss the program. Although he denied that North Korea has a “uranium-based nuclear weapons program,” Kim said that his government would “clarify” any relevant “credible information or evidence” presented by the United States.

Arms Control Today reported in May that North Korean officials have previously suggested through third parties that Pyongyang would be willing to discuss the enrichment program. (See ACT, May 2005.)

Draft Statement Controversies

Still, Pyongyang’s refusal to give up its right to possess peaceful nuclear energy technology received the most attention. Kim said in the CNN interview that Pyongyang had made a “strategic decision to denuclearize the Korean peninsula” and reiterated North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s June promise that Pyongyang would return to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), from which it announced its withdrawal in 2003, and accept related International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. However, Vice Minister Kim also said that Pyongyang wants to use peaceful nuclear technology in the future.

According to Hill, North Korea also has demanded that its “desire” for proliferation-resistant, light-water nuclear reactors be included in the statement of principles.

The United States says it opposes any North Korean nuclear facilities because of concerns that Pyongyang will use them to make fissile material for nuclear weapons. However, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Kai-moon told CNN Aug. 21 that Seoul believes North Korea can be permitted peaceful use of nuclear energy once it dismantles all nuclear weapons and related programs, returns to the NPT, and comes into full compliance with its IAEA safeguards obligations. Hill subsequently indicated in several press appearances that the United States could be flexible on the issue.

A Year Without Talks

There was a brief glimpse of hope for the talks’ continued progress after the last round in June 2004. During that round, the United States made its first concrete offer to resolve the nuclear crisis. Its proposal described a two-phase process in which North Korea would freeze, then dismantle its nuclear facilities in return for fuel oil provided by the talks’ other participants, as well as several U.S.-initiated incentives. (See ACT, July/August 2004.)

However, North Korea later refused to participate in another round of talks scheduled for the following September. Pyongyang partly explained its decision by blaming what it said was “hostile” U.S. policy. It was also widely believed that North Korea was awaiting the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. (See ACT, October 2004.)

But in recent months, the talks had seemed increasingly likely to resume. Perhaps most importantly, Kim Jong Il told a senior South Korean official in June that Pyongyang would be willing to return to the talks and eliminate its nuclear weapons programs. He also went so far as to say that the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the “dying wish” of his father, North Korea’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung. (See ACT, July/August 2005.)

Kim reiterated his father’s apparent wish during a July 13 meeting with an envoy of Chinese president Hu Jintao, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korea announced its return to the talks after a July 9 bilateral meeting between Hill and Vice Minister Kim. According to a KCNA statement, the “ U.S. side clarified its official stand to recognize [North Korea] as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within the framework of the six-party talks.”

These remarks reflected the culmination of a months-long, multilateral diplomatic effort to restart the talks. North Korea has dialed back during the past several months its conditions for returning to the talks while Washington has moderated its rhetoric toward Pyongyang and engaged in more bilateral meetings with North Korea. (See ACT, June 2005.)

North Korea has for some time been attempting to discern whether Washington has a policy of overthrowing the North Korean government. Asked Aug. 14 whether he believes the United States is actually pursuing such a policy, rather than negotiating in good faith, Vice Minister Kim told CNN that he “need[s] more time to judge” Washington’s true intentions.

The talks were to have resumed the week of Aug. 29, but North Korea’s Foreign Ministry stated that day that Pyongyang was extending the recess because the United States was conducting a joint military exercise with South Korea. It also complained of Washington’s appointment of Jay Lefkowitz as special envoy for human rights in North Korea. Pyongyang has repeatedly cited joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises and U.S. pressure on human rights issues as indications that the White House is seeking to overthrow the Kim Jong Il regime.