While long-awaited talks between the U.S. and North Korea are impending in New York, there nevertheless appear to be some substantive barriers to progress between the two countries.
Vice North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, arriving on Tuesday at JFK Airport in New York, announced, “I am optimistic that the Six-Party Talks will come together well,” and added, “It is a time for all the countries to bring reconciliation, so I believe that U.S.-North Korea relations will get better.”
However, the U.S. is playing down the contacts, calling them “exploratory” and aimed at observing North Korea’s sincerity on denuclearization.
In a press statement on Kim’s visit released on the 24th, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the meeting “an exploratory meeting to determine if North Korea is prepared to affirm its obligations under international and Six Party Talk commitments, as well as take concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization.”
The same view was reiterated in Monday’s State Department press briefing, at which spokesperson Victoria Nuland commented, “We see this as a preliminary session where we’re going to lay out very clearly our expectations for what will be necessary to not only resume Six-Party Talks, but to improve direct engagement between the U.S. and the DPRK.”
The South Korean foreign ministry (MOFAT) also does not predict that the U.S.-North Korea talks will promptly lead to the Six-Party Talks.
A high official within MOFAT said, “There are so many obstacles to going straight to the Six-Party Talks. We cannot say that the Six-Party Talks will begin soon after the inter-Korean talks are done.”
Another official from the same ministry explained to the Daily NK on Wednesday, “The U.S. stated that these talks with North Korea were exploratory ones through which it will sound the North out on whether it will implement commitments of the September 19 Joint Statement.”
Meanwhile, even though moves surrounding North Korea have been coming thick and fast since the ASEAN Regional Forum foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali last week, there are still clear differences of view between the U.S. and North Korea.
While the U.S. wants to confirm North Korea’s sincerity in its manner, suspicions are that North Korea wants to go back to the Six-Party Talks and engage in tried-and-tested salami tactics to earn a profit from each small step towards denuclearization.
Kim Sung Han of Korea University explained to The Daily NK, “North Korea wants to get the May 24 Measures lifted, large scale food aid, and negotiations on a peace treaty.”
He went on, “However, it is hard for North Korea to get those things because North Korea cannot show the sincerity for denuclearization that the U.S. wants to see. What the U.S. wants is the suspension of nuclear tests, IAEA monitors going back to North Korean nuclear facilities, and halts to all kinds of nuclear developments, including UEP.”
Through the Clinton press statement, the U.S. reaffirmed that it would not go back to the Six-Party Talks in the past pattern, saying, “We do not intend to reward the North just for returning to the table. We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take.”
That being said, while the U.S. tends to decouple humanitarian and security issues overall, the idea that a small gift of humanitarian aid could happen cannot be ruled out.
Professor Kim said, “The U.S. may utilize its indirect leverage against North Korea in the form of a small incentive for the North.”
Kim Kye Gwan is set to meet Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Bosworth, Six-Party Talks point man Clifford Hart and Robert King, Special Envoy for North Korea’s Human Rights, on the 28th and 29th.
